"With the support of people like you, we will be able to get America back to work again," Romney wrote to his e-mail list Tuesday while he personally pressed donors in New York to pony up.
The candidates' own cash is just part of the picture, because, this year, outside groups are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts to back specific candidates. And allies of Romney, Perry, and Paul all have formed so-called SuperPACs to help their preferred candidates win the nomination.
That money aside, Romney is likely to post the strongest fund-raising numbers, though spokeswoman Andrea Saul said the former Massachusetts governor would raise "considerably less" than the $18 million he reported gathering from April to June, his first fund-raising quarter as a candidate.
Perry donors say he could hit $10 million, raised since he entered the race early last month. But his advisers are lowering expectations, either so that the Texas governor's haul looks more impressive when it's announced, or as an indication that the huge dose of enthusiasm that Perry initially generated hasn't been accompanied by a huge dose of money.
Paul's campaign asked supporters to celebrate the Texas congressman's Aug. 20 birthday with a donation - and they gave him $1.6 million on that day alone. Paul can seemingly turn on the money spigot when he needs to; his loyal libertarian backers have delivered like that on five occasions, to the tune of a million or more at a time.
The rest of the field lags far, far behind.
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who is in the single digits in most state and national opinion polls, recently had to write himself a half-million-dollar check to keep his campaign afloat. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann spent so much money in Iowa in August to win a statewide test vote that her Web videos look more amateurish than professional now.
