Democrats, Obama Win Race For Georgia Campaign Dollars

WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama got a big boost from Georgians on the way to raking in a jaw-dropping $25 million nationwide for his newcomer presidential campaign.

Sprinting ahead of all other contenders in Georgia, the Illinois first-term senator collected $478,000 in the state in the first three months of this year.

That's nearly six times as much as rival Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton raised in the state, as revealed in the first campaign finance reports for the 2008 primaries.

Obama's early fundraising also topped John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator, who took in a respectable $377,000 from Georgians as the lone Southerner in the race to be the Democratic nominee.

Democrats in Georgia followed the national trend by far out-raising Republican candidates in the first test of the "money primary."

Obama, who drew 20,000 to a rally on the campus of Georgia Tech last weekend, tapped into first-time contributors as well as veteran donors who once raised huge sums for the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton.

"There is just a hunger for something different," said Kirk Dornbush, an Atlanta businessman who is overseeing Obama's fundraising in the South.

Dornbush, whose father, K. Terry Dornbush, was ambassador to the Netherlands during the Clinton administration, helped raise Georgia cash for then-candidate Clinton in 1992 as well as for other presidential contenders, including John Edwards in 2004.

Switching to Obama for 2008, Dornbush said he was hooked after reading the candidate's latest book ("The Audacity of Hope") and after meeting the senator face-to-face.

The fundraising success in Georgia is evidence that "there's something happening here," said Dornbush, an executive at Iconic Therapeutics Inc.

Others drawn into the effort include Karol Mason, a lawyer with Alston & Bird, who in past years has written occasional checks for political candidates but who has emerged as one of the top fundraisers nationwide for the Obama campaign.

"I didn't expect to see in my lifetime a black man being reported as one of the front-runners for the Dem nomination for president," Mason said.

"I think that, taking color away, he is the candidate to support," she said. "It is an added thing to me that in supporting him, I am participating in making history."

Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University, said he was not surprised at Obama's success in Georgia, where he has "generated far more enthusiasm than any other of the candidates," especially among affluent African-Americans and liberal whites.

Republican contributions are lagging, he said, because "right now a lot of conservatives in Georgia may feel they don't have a candidate."

While Democrats totaled up more than $1 million from the state, the GOP candidates collected just over $620,000.

Even so, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney staked out a huge early lead over rival Republicans by taking in $397,000 in the first quarter of the year in Georgia.

"We very much need a president with strong executive capabilities," said W. Thomas Haynes, executive director of the Coca-Cola Bottlers' Association, and a member of the Romney finance team in Georgia. Haynes said he is calling friends and colleagues to ask them to support Romney, who ran a prosperous business and later oversaw the winter Olympics games of 2002.

Haynes said he was not surprised that Romney raised the most among Republicans, despite his low poll ratings nationwide. "I'm very pleased with the success, particularly in the business community," he said.

Among other contributors reported by the Romney campaign are Samuel Kellett, founder of Kangaro Bob's, a chain of kids' recreation and game centers, and Cobb County Commission Chairman Samuel Olens.