[UPDATE BY PATTERICO: I could be wrong, but this guest post by WLS seems like an Emily Litella moment in light of the update. So I’m not going to take it down, but I’m tucking it in the extended entry, because it appears that the main thrust of the post has been overtaken by the update at the end. In other words: “Never mind.”]

I appreciate the update — the question I couldn’t seem to find the answer to on my own seems to have been hiding on me in plain sight.  But, for the reasons I express in a comment, I’m still not convinced the fundraising news is all candy and roses in the Obama camp.  — WLS

[Posted by WLS]

Previously I wondered here and here about the reasons for the delay in Obama’s fundraising report for the month of June. Here I argued that $52 million, while an impressive number, might not be quite as high as the campaign had hoped for in plotting their 50 state strategy funded completely by private donations.

But now it seems that we may have stumbled on a reason for the delay in the reporting of the June fundraising numbers, and it was not for the reasons originally suspected, as noted below.

When the Obama campaign announced its fundraising numbers for June, there was much cheering on the left and marveling in the press at the fundraising juggernaut that Obama was once again. A few examples of his press coverage:

From the nytimes:

Senator Barack Obama raised $52 million in June, his campaign announced Thursday, recording his second-best fund-raising month of the year through an aggressive mix of small and large contributions that produced more than twice the amount raised by Senator John McCain. After becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee last month, Mr. Obama also helped the Democratic National Committee markedly increase its fund-raising to $22.4 million in June. Together, the Obama campaign and the party have about $92.3 million in the bank, which is slightly less than Republicans, who began July with about $95 million.

From cnn.com:

McCain’s campaign raised $22 million in June, its best month yet. The campaign said that combined with the Republican National Committee, it has about $95 million cash on hand. In a fundraising e-mail to supporters, Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe acknowledged the deficit, saying “McCain and the RNC together still have a huge cash advantage, and we need your help to close the gap.” But when Obama’s funds are combined with the Democratic National Committee’s funds, he has $92 million, meaning he’s about on par with McCain.

From the washingtonpost.com:

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said in this morning’s e-mail that the Democrat has $72 million in cash on hand. The Democratic National Committee has a further $20.3 million in the bank, meaning the candidate and his party have $92 million to spend on their presidential efforts. While Republican rival Sen. John McCain raised just $22 million last month, his campaign has said that he and his party entered July with a combined $93 million in the bank, and McCain campaign manager Rick Davis predicted the campaign and Republican National Committee would combine to raise another $100 million in July and August.

While the numbers for Obama’s fundraising were backed up by his FEC report showing $54.3 million raised in June, and $71.7 million cash on hand on June 30, nothing filed with the FEC supports the announced numbers for the DNC.

Here is the FEC Form 3X filed by the DNC (the DNC’s formal corporate name is DNC Service Corp. — see biz.yahoo.com.)

What this shows is that the DNC raised only $7.6 million in June, and had cash on hand at the end of June of only $4.5 million — which is pretty much in line with its fundraising this election cycle, and has been the subject of much complaint about the stewardship of Howard Dean as chairman.

But it miles apart from the Obama campaign’s announcement that the DNC raised $22 million and had $20 million cash on hand, which is what was reported by Jake Tapper at abcnews.com.

Why is this important?

Because if the FEC filing for the DNC reflects the only cash raised by the DNC in June, then the combined Obama/DNC war-chest is NOT $92 million, it is only $76 million. Rather than be roughly equal with the McCain/RNC in cash on hand, they will really be $19 million behind.

And it would also reflect an extreme disadvantage going forward for Obama/DNC. Obama raised $54 million in June, and spent $23 million. Lets say he raises $60 million in both July and August. Combined with the $76 million in the bank, that would give him $196 million on Sept 1, less expenses. Lets say he spends $30 million in both July and Aug — similar to his expenses in June — that would leave him with around $135 million on Sept. 1 when the general campaign kicks off.

McCain/RNC, on the other hand, have approx. $95 million now, but it must spend $35 million of that — plus any money McCain raises in July and Aug — before the convention. That means all the money raised by the RNC can be held back for the general election campaign. The note above says the RNC expects to raise $100 million in July and Aug combined, and it would have about $50 million left in the bank with McCain spending his primary money leading up to the convention. That’s $150 million in RNC money on Sept. 1.

But McCain will also receive an immediate cash infusion of $84 million in public funds on Sept. 1 — taking the McCain/RNC war-chest up to around $235 million, with the RNC still able to raise money in Sept. and Oct.

If the DNC is raising less than $10 million a month, after it pays the convention expenses it won’t have a ton of money left over to help on the campaign starting Sept. 1. So Obama is going to start Sept with not much more than the $135 million he will have left from the money he raised himself from June through Aug, less expenses. That will put him nearly $100 million behind McCain and the RNC, though he will be able to continue raising money in Sept and Oct, when McCain can’t (but the RNC can).

There are only two explanations that I can think of for this discrepancy. First, there is another source of fund raising revenue that is reported by the DNC under some other entity, which makes up the difference between the $7.6 million in the FEC form linked above, and the $22 million that was told to the press. I’ve looked all over the FEC site and I can’t find it. Maybe the difference is made-up in non-cash contributions towards convention expenses — if so that would not be something that isn’t capable of being repeated in Sept. and Oct., meaning that expectations of improved DNC fundraising going forward would not be supported, and it would still be the case that the Obama campaign fudged the numbers to the press.

The other explanation is that the Obama campaign lied about the DNC numbers. Why would they do that?

Why would the DNC file its Form 3X on a Sunday, three days after the Obama campaign announced the numbers to the press, and the day before Obama headed off the Iraq for his long-awaited tour?

One reason they might have wanted to lie would be to see if they could keep the DNC’s pathetic fundraising a secret for another month. One line of thought suggests that the DNC fundraising in this election cycle really drove Obama to the decision to opt out of public financing. If he had accepted the same $84 million that McCain accepted, he would have been dependent on the DNC for additional spending at a time when the DNC is being out-raised 4-1 by the RNC. Over the 10 week general campaign that would have amounted to a nearly $70 million disadvantage, with the RNC raising about $120 million and the DNC raising less than $50 million.

I haven’t found a single press report that actually looked at the FEC filing made by the DNC. After that document was filed on Sunday 7/20, ALL press attention was on Obama’s trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe.

I guess we now have a possible explanation as to why the Obama campaign waited as long as it did to announce its June fundraising totals — it wanted the details to be buried under an avalanche of press attention on Obama’s Grand European Tour.

H/T redstate.com

UPDATE: And it’s Option 1 , courtesy of RedState’s update and Simpson316:

“…turns out that it was a Victory Fund thing after all:

Specifically, the Obama Victory and the Democratic White House Victory Funds. These are both joint fund-raising accounts designed to allow for contributions up to what look to be around $30,000 or more, based on this article: and the numbers match up. The difference between the two funds, by the way, is that the latter is older, and was set up between the DNC, Obama, and Clinton. The Obama Victory Fund is merely between Obama and the DNC, obviously.”