First-quarter fundraising totals are in, and there are two surprising results:

• Democrats as a whole destroyed Republicans, by about $70 to $50 million (D: Clinton $26, Obama $20+, Edwards $14, Richardson $6, Dodd $4, Biden $4; R: Romney $21, Giuliani $15, McCain $12, Brownback $2)

• Romney, the top Republican, places only second or third among all candidates.

What does this mean?

It could just be an aberration: Bush irritates Democratic donors to contribute more, while fatiguing Republicans. Indeed in 2000, with Clinton irritation/fatigue in full force, Republicans outspent Democrats by almost 3-to-1 over the whole primary (pdf). Note that it's hard to compare these numbers, since the Democratic vice president was running; I can't find numbers for when both parties had a truly open primary.

But what if it's a trend rather than a one-time occurrence? Remember that while the conventional wisdom is that Republicans outraise Democrats, Kerry and Bush raised almost equal amounts in the last general election. To me this suggests that the party has more leeway in how it courts big donors. While more money is always better, the old argument that Democrats need to court business to close the Ad Gap no longer applies. Maybe someone should ask Harold Ford why we still need him...