Extending his financial advantage over Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama brought in over $40 million in contributions in March, giving him $131 million in the first three months of 2008.

Obama bested Clinton by a 2:1 margin last month, as Hillary raised $20 million, giving her $70 million so far this year. 

Those numbers only reinforce the reality that Obama will again hold the edge in radio and TV advertising as we go into Pennsylvania and the final stretch of this Democratic race.

Really, for being outraised almost two to one overall, for Clinton to be behind only by 120-160 delegates isn't bad.

"I will have money to compete," Clinton said at a news conference in California on Thursday.  "We're both raising huge amounts of money."

The problem is that it is getting more and more difficult every day for Clinton to turn the delegate numbers in her favor.

Some notable statistics from Obama's fundraising really stick out in March.  Team Obama reported that he had over 440,000 donors, who gave an average of $96.  Of those, almost half had never given money to him before.

That's pretty staggering when you think about it, because I would bet most of those newbies weren't giving the legal limit of $2300 for the primary and $2300 for the general election.

That means Obama can go back to them again and ask for more cash later this year.

On the TV ad front, the Clinton Camp announced that it was running the first ads for Hillary in North Carolina which votes on May 6th.  Obama began his ad buy last week.  She will be outspent there for sure.

After raising money last night in Beverly Hills, California, Clinton goes to Memphis, Tennessee today to mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Barack Obama won't be in Memphis, but John McCain will be, as he addresses a meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Council.

As for McCain, there was another poll out today that showed a good sized chunk of Democrats ready to vote for McCain if their candidate doesn't win the Democratic nomination.

The poll from the South Bend Tribune showed that of Clinton supporters, if she was not the nominee, 66% would vote for Obama, 22% for McCain.

For Obama backers, if Obama was not the Democratic nominee, 63% would vote for Clinton and 16% would vote for McCain.

Those numbers for McCain would go down by Election Day for sure, but they are a red flag for the Democratic Party.

One final election note, former President Jimmy Carter all but said on a trip to Africa that he will be an Obama superdelegate.  Why not just come out and do that now?