Of the major announced presidential candidates, it seems to me four of them (Clinton, Romney, Edwards and Giuliani) did what they had to in regards to first quarter fundraising. While Senator Clinton received some early favorable spin on the blowout $36 million headline number, the $26 million actually raised is not that impressive when compared to Obama's rumored $20 million-plus and Edwards' very solid 14 million. Sen. Clinton's number looks even worse when you break down the primary vs. general election cash and the relatively low number of individual donations -- fewer than McCain and way fewer than Obama. In fact, when you get beyond the headline number bandied about, Hillary's number was just OK (for someone who has been considered the prohibitive favorite and inevitable nominee) nothing more. The real story on the Democratic side continues to be the Obama campaign, especially if its figure does come in at over $20 million with more than 80,000 donors.

As far as the Republicans are concerned, the Romney supporters and some in the press are making a big deal about Romney's $20 million, but the reality is his campaign had to put up a number in this range to continue to be taken seriously. And at the end of the day we are not learning anything new here with the big Romney raise. Everybody knows Romney can raise money and everybody also knows Romney has the resources to write substantial checks to his campaign at any time and for just about any amount. Romney's problem is not money. His problem is he has been fully "in" for a while now and he continues to clock in at single digits in the RCP Average, not to mention a pitiful 3% in the latest Gallup poll. The Romney campaign did what it had to do, nothing more. Its challenge now will be: Can Romney make use of this money and start to make some inroads with Republican voters nationally and outside of neighboring New Hampshire?

McCain's $12.5 million on the other hand was clearly disappointing, as his campaign has acknowledged. But his 60,000-plus donors (considerably more than Romney) will put him a solid position to improve on these numbers in the next two quarters -- and he will have to -- if he hopes to avoid a complete campaign meltdown. Giuliani's $15 million gets a pass, simply because it is $2.5 million more than McCain and his burn looks to be considerably lower than the Romney and McCain operations.

At the end of the day, because of McCain's potential to turn things around on the fundraising side, I don't know if we have learned anything dispositive from the Q1 Republican numbers. For the Democrats, it looks to be another piece of evidence that Hillary Clinton is far from the inevitable nominee one might have thought a year ago.