Senator Barack Obama shakes hands at a rally in the Crown Center Coliseum in Fayetteville, North Carolina, yesterday. - AP

WASHINGTON (AP):

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised more than US$150 million in September, a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving that has given him a wide spending advantage over rival John McCain.

The campaign released the figure on Sunday, one day before it must file a detailed report of its monthly finances with the Federal Election Commission.

Obama's money is fuelling a vast campaign operation in an expanding field of competitive states. It also has underwritten a wave of both national and targeted video advertising unseen before in a presidential contest.

Huge donations

Campaign manager David Plouffe, in an email to supporters yesterday morning, said the campaign had added 632,000 new donors in September for a total of 3.1 million contributors to the campaign. He said the average donation was US$86.

The Democratic National Committee, moments later, announced that it raised US$49.9 million and had US$27.5 million in the bank at the start of October. The party has been raising money through joint fund-raising events with Obama and can use the money to assist his candidacy.

Obama's numbers are possible because he opted out of the public financing system for the fall campaign. McCain, the Republican nominee, chose to participate in the system, which limits him to US$84 million for the September-October stretch before the election.

Impressive fund-raising

Obama's monthly figure pushed his total fund-raising to US$605 million. No presidential candidate has ever run such an expensive campaign. His campaign raised US$65 million in August, his previous best.

"The overall numbers obviously are impressive," Plouffe said in a campaign video. "But it's what's beneath the numbers in terms of average Americans who have had enough, who want a change and who are really fuelling this campaign."

McCain, reacting to Obama's announcement, raised the potential for fund-raising abuses. He said on 'Fox News Sunday' that Obama is "completely breaking whatever idea we had after Watergate to keep the costs and spending on campaigns under control. ... That has unleashed now in presidential campaigns a new flood of spending that will then cause a scandal, and then we will fix it again."