WASHINGTON, July 17 (UPI) -- Campaign veterans are watching to see if U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama can draw more than the Democratic elite who backed Howard Dean in 2003.
Like Dean, Obama raised tens of millions of dollars in a few months, his supporters are passionate and his grass-roots movement threatens a more established rival.
Many of Obama's advisers worked on Dean's campaign and watched the former Vermont governor's slow rise and rapid descent at close range. They reject comparisons between Dean and Obama, arguing Obama won't repeat the mistakes of Dean, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Obama's campaign is "generating an enormous amount of enthusiasm, excitement and money," Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to Dean, told the Post. "The question now, as in all movements like this, is whether or not the voters and the votes will follow."
The most recent campaign finance reports show Obama in the last three months raised $32.8 million from 258,000 individual donors throughout the country - $10 million more than rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., raised during the same period.
