Ambinder can’t copyright the facts so I’ll steal the fundraising numbers from him — $31 million for Obama, $9 million for Edwards, $7 million for Richardson, and an estimate of “about $20M in primary funds” for Clinton (who’s also raising general election funds). Read Marc for analysis. He says the results “imposes an obligaton on all of us who cover the race: we need to figure out why the ‘national’ frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, isn’t generating as much excitement as her chief competitior.”
To me this isn’t all that puzzling. Obama’s supporters, though numerically fewer than Clinton’s, are more drawn from the “high information” segment of the electorate that has both more money to donate and more inclination to do so. Donations would be a great proxy for intensity of support of you were looking at two demographically similar groups of people, but that’s not the case here.