Put your money where your campaign is

Let the horse race begin! Politico has released its first 2010 campaign fundraising scorecard, and is already naming the winners and some embarrassing missed-the-mark losers. And this is just the first quarter.

So what gives? The game has hardly begun, right? Wrong.

The most important part about the media picking up on the candidates fundraising support thus far is that it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. People read reports like these and think "Well, I was going to support Carolyn McCarthy to challenge Kristen Gillibrand, but why contribute to a losing battle?" Then what was still maybe a close game really does become a losing battle.

And my oh my, Sen. Burris, have you got a losing battle on your hands. Maybe he can take a hint from former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer: disappear from politics for a while, come back slowly, tail nicely tucked between the legs, and become a political pundit.