Campaign Bench Mark #1 - Campaign funding is not as important as we mighjt think.

Election Benchmark #1 : A credible and popular conservative Republican candidate would have beaten Obama in 2008 -- Obama did not win the election because of his ability to raise money.

Here is our reasoning

Midknight Review reminds you that the November Presidential election that brought Obama into power included these financial statistics:

McCain collected and spent approximately $360 million dollars - near a record collection.

Obama collected and spent approximately $800 million dollars - crushing previous campaign funding records.

Keep in mind that he actually campaigned for two years, spent an incredible amount of funds (noted above), ran against one of the most polarizing GOP candidates in recent memory in John McCain, had unprecedented support from the "main stream media" (positive news articles for Obama numbered nearly 3 times the total of positive articles for McCain), benefited from the novelty of both his race and his speaking abilities, and -- in the end -- won the election by just 6.5 %.

In addition to the above, millions of conservatives stayed away from the polls altogether - refusing to vote for a sorely compromised Republican candidate.

Again, the margin of victory was 6.5 % of the popular vote (69 million to 60 million with 4 to 8 million conservatives refusing to vote). Since that election, he has lost 20 points in the "independent" community, 6 % in the Black community, has energized a conservative grassroots base as never before, conversely discouraged much of his Leftist base and has nothing to say that we have not heard hundred of times over the course of the past years. Words are powerful but broken promises mean even more.

As things stand now, Obama can not win re-election and that fact is very important. Midknight Review believes it to be possible IF NOT LIKELY that 73 million Americans will vote "conservative" in the coming elections.

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