I see that the Obama campaign just announced another record-setting month of fund raising:

Senator Barack Obama raised $66 million in the month of August, making it his best month ever and the best in American political history, an aide said Sunday morning.

Obama is releasing that number after suggestions that his fundraising was failing to meet expectations. It puts him on pace to substantially outspend John McCain in the last two months of the race, in which McCain will be limited to spending the $84 million supplied by the Treasury under public financing rules.

Impressive, though Ed Morrissey makes a point about Obama’s fund raising that nobody else seems to be making.  Namely, that it costs Obama millions to raise all that money.  It doesn’t cost McCain a penny, meaning that McCain can focus on campaigning while a good portion of Obama’s resources have to be diverted to keeping the money coming in.

While John McCain can only spend $84 million over the next two months after accepting that much from the public-financing system, it doesn’t cost him a dime to get it.  The Obama campaign’s burn rate will be critical in determining whether he’s actually raising enough money to keep him ahead of McCain.  If it costs him more than $20 million to raise that money, it’s essentially a wash — and the burn rate at Team O has been much higher than 30%.  Their cash-on-hand numbers will probably tell a different story, as Obama would have to almost double McCain’s $84 million over the next two months just to stay even.

Byron York notes that the Obama campaign had $77 million in cash on hand after August, but after July they had $66 million on hand. Which means a spending rate of 80%.  Which means they’re going to have to raise more than $66 million/month to keep funding fund raising activities, keep up the campaign against McCain and make up for the RNC’s fund raising advantage over the DNC which has been constant and pronounced.

And setting all that aside, let’s remember that beating someone with fund raising doesn’t necessarily translate into election day victories.  And that comparing Obama’s rund raising to John McCain is like comparing apples to skyscrapers.

McCain isn’t raising any money right now because he can’t.  By law.  Unlike Obama, McCain followed through on his promise to accept public campaign financing and thus can’t fund raise.  Obama can, and is, and while his numbers have been big we don’t know how much McCain would be raising.

Obama may end up breaking every Presidential campaign fund raising record in the books, but the way things are going now he may also end up with the richest campaign that never won an election.