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The third quarter has just ended and with the Iowa caucus just 14 weeks away, it is crunch time for the politicians. The ending of the third quarter also brings the campaign financing reports which will indicates how well each candidate is doing so far. Clinton brought in funds in the neighborhood of 27 million while Obama posted numbers of 20 million. Edwards on the other hand brought in just 7 million. However, there was good news for Edwards. Edwards made over 1 million dollars in last in the last 10 days of the quarter in an online campaign. Edwards also applied for public financing, which will give him an additional 10 million dollars. Public financing is something any candidate can get and any contributions up to 250 dollars are matched. The side effect to this is that there are restrictions in how they can spend the money, for example, the time of year.

Edwards has noted that 97% of his money is from small contributions that are under 250 dollars, which indicates that he is not getting any money from lobbyists but instead from individual people; something Hillary Clinton can't say. The small amount of money is not hurting Edwards too badly since he is leading in some polls in the Iowa caucus: 27% over Hillary Clinton's 22% and Obama's lowly 16%. Edwards has been campaigning in Iowa twice as much as anyone else. Voters think Clinton is too conservative, especially with the war.

The Iowa caucus is always the first in the primary race and is usually the most important. An instance of this was at the last democratic primary when Kerry and Edwards came out of nowhere, instead of the heavily favorite Howard Dean. Dean had been the favorite for many months prior to the caucus. Kerry would later become the democratic nominee with John Edwards as his vice president.

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