Since Barack Obama’s wins this week in the District of Columbia and the states Virginia and Maryland, Hillary Clinton lags behind in the polls.  It is estimated that Barack Obama has 1,215 delegates, while Hillary Clinton’s delegates come to 1,190.  Earlier, Hillary Clinton was leading the polls. in these polls the superdelegates- democratic party leaders and official entitled to private votes- were always counted in.

The almost 800 superdelegates were clearly in favor of Hillary and ensured her the lead so far, but now she lost the leading position to Obama even with the superdelegates’ votes counted in.

To receive the Democratic nomination for the ultimate battle against the Republican nominee, a Democratic candidate has to reach 2,025  delegates. The Democratic’s  struggle is not over yet- in fact it is more exciting than ever before. Although Hillary has had quite a rough weekend- her campaign manager was fired and she lost against Barack Obama in three states- she continues the campaign energetic as always.

At the eve of the second pre-elections for American presidency in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton held an emotional speech.  Being among an audience of mostly women, Hillary Clinton seemed to feel very tired and sad about the state of the country. She convinced the audience that she wanted to make the United States a better place. She stressed that it was not just a political effort, but that she had put her whole heart into her campaign and into her plans for America, would she be elected President in 2008.

In the video below Hillary Clinton is answering a question from an elderly woman: “How do you do it? How do you keep up … and who does your hair?”

The Clinton’s are now campaigning in Iowa. Things are not always running smoothly, as Mr. Clinton causes some divided emotions. At the one hand, Bill plays an increasingly important role in his wife’s campaign, or so it seems, while at the other hand he is attracting a lot of attention to himself, something that some say could harm the campaign of Hillary Clinton.

Advisors of the Clintons say that Bill Clinton’s presence in Hillary’s campaign has grown because of several reasons: the first is that Bill believes that winning or losing in Iowa is crucial to the rest of the bid for presidency and that the New Hampshire primary is a determining factor in this. The second is that Bill has become quite competitive and is anxious to succeed.

Bill Clinton is not very keen on a certain kind of publicity, expecially publicity in which Barack Obama is being portrayed as the one that will bring change in the American political arena while the rest of the Democratic candidates- including Hillary- are being portrayed as the older generation of Democrats.

Last week Bill Clinton prepared a speech on behalf of his wife in which the word “change” was strikinlgy apparent. Whether this will do Hillary any good, however, is not certain, since Bill, in that same speech, also stated that he was against the war in Iraq from the beginning, a statement that is more than contested.

Some sources say that Bill Clinton’s approach to Hillary’s campaign might not be the most effective one. Although Bill is a very strong element in Hillary’s bid for the presidency, he might also become too strong, something that strategists have been warning him for from the beginning.

Source: Drudge Report

Running for the Democrat presidential candidacy costs money, let alone running for the highest office itself.

But focusing on how much the key Democrat presidential nominees can earn is a distraction. In fact, the non-Hillaries are worth far more than Mrs. Clinton alone.

US primary campaigns are notorious for all the razzmatazz you can imagine. The politics itself is almost overshadowed by the endless round of conventions and hard-hitting advertising: at times, the campaigns look more like traveling circuses than sober attempts to name a potential leader of the free world.

After that, it gets worse. According to the BBC, George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign is estimated to have run to $273 million; John Kerry raised $249 million. The next Democratic candidate is going to need even more.

So even at this early stage, it’s all about the money. It stands to reason that the party nominee who can score the most dollars now will have a higher chance at the primaries. The Democrats certainly aren’t going to want to back a lame duck from the start, and financial contributions in 2007 must indicate the relative levels of popularity each will enjoy when crunch time comes next year.

The Washington Post today reports the approximate funding the four main candidates have raised over the last three months:

• Hillary Clinton: $17 million
• Barack Obama: $17 million
• John Edwards: $7 million
• Bill Richardson: $5.2 million

So between the bunch, and knowing that Hillary and Barack haven’t yet disclosed the exact totals for the quarter (they’ll have to by October 15), that’s a cool $46.2 million: $17 million for Hillary and $29.2 million for the other three.

But with eight Democrat candidates standing (let’s not forget Dodd, Biden, Gravel and Kucinich, however tempting it might be), isn’t there something of a distortion here?

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment. Perhaps the main thing going for seven of them is the simple fact that they’re not Hillary. Tot up the known funding totals so far for this magnificent seven (derived from opensecrets.org) and the figures speak clearly. Between them, they’d gathered $115 million by quarter two - $52 million above Mrs. Clinton’s equivalent total, or about 83% more.

What does that tell us? It tells us that - assuming anti-Hillary voters would support anyone who wasn’t married to an ex-president - the ‘I’m not Hillary’ ticket is worth almost twice as much. The problem is that it’s currently diluted between the seven others, so the cash is simply not as effective.

But as far as the current campaigns go, there can be only one. So what happens to all the spare cash the unsuccessful candidates have raised? Are they going to pool it for the long-term good of the party? I doubt it. No, even though the anti-Hillary nominees are worth 83% more, they may not to be able to capitalize on it.

Rebublicans Mitt Romney and John McCain are the biggest money spenders in the first two quarters of this year’s run up to the presidential elections. Mitt Romney spent more than $11 million on his campaign in the first quarter and more than $20 million so far in the second! Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent more than $8 million on his campaign in the first, and more than $13 million in the second quarter.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the two biggest spenders on the Democrats’ side, being good for more than $41 million spent together so far in the first two quarters of 2007. Obama was the number 1 democrat spender in both the first and the second quarter. See for more details on presidential candidates’ campaign spending the Interactives at Yahoo.com

Writing early September 2007, the most prominent democratic presidential nominees for the 2008 U.S. presidential elections are:

• Hillary Clinton, New York Senator
• Barack Obama, Illinois Senator
• John Edwards, former Senator from North Carolina

• Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Congressman, former Mayor of Cleveland
• Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
• Joe Biden, Senator of Delaware
• Chris Dodd, Senator of Connecticut
• Mike Gravel, former Senator
• Al Gore is high up in the polls, although it is still not clear whether the man will run for president in 2008. He has been busy with his book “An Inconvenient Truth”, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

The official campaigning period has hardly begun, and nominee Hillary Clinton already spent more than $ 20 million on her presidential campaign. Back in the 1990s, her husband had “only” spent $ 20 thousand at this particular time in the run up to the elections.

Traditionally, Labor Day (early September) marks the kick-off for the presidential campaigns for the year after, however, it seems like the presidential campaign for the 2008 elections already started right the day after the 2004 presidential elections.

The long weekend of Labor Day 2007 was used as the kick-off for the presidential candidates’ campaigns, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigning in New Hampshire with their families, and John Edwards interrupting a two-day campaign in Iowa to receive the endorsements of two labor unions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America, together representing more than one million members. Receiving the two union endorsements makes that, with a total of three endorsements, John Edwards is ahead of Hillary Clinton, who received two union endorsements and Chris Dod, who so far has received one union endorsement.

Hillary Clinton is leading the polls, with Barack Obama coming in second at a safe distance. However, in some primary states, the race is closer and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are wound up in a three-way battle for the top positions. Such is the case in Iowa, a lot of campaigning therefore is expected from the democratic presidential nominees in Iowa in the coming months.

Technology plays an important role in the 2008 presidential campaigns, as the big online democratic debate that was organised by CNN and YouTube on Monday July 23rd 2007 shows. Citizens from all over the U.S. could ask their questions to the presidential candidates, who answered the citizens live. The CNN/ YouTube format is being hailed as a transformational moment in the history of presidential debates (BBC News). It has been marked as very democratic and as a reflection of the dominant role the internet plays and will play in the 2008 campaign.

The democratic presidential nominees themselves also use the internet as a major campaigning tool. Hillary Clinton has her own website where you can subscribe to support her and where you can win a lunch with Hillary at her home in Washington when you contribute to her campaign. www.hillaryclinton.com

Barack Obama totally discovered YouTube as the ideal way of promoting himself. His site is loaded with YouTube videos from his campaign tour and he created his own profile on YouTube. At this blog you’ll find one of his speeches.

Also John Edwards benefits from YouTube and put some videos on his website www.johnedwards.com

At DemocraticPresidentialNominees.com we try to keep you posted on the developments in the run up to the 2008 presidential elections of the United States.