Now - of course - the perpetual campaign is not without value. If it was valueless, candidates would not engage in it. The problem for observers like you and me is that the media tends to overestimate the value that the perpetual campaign has - so consumers of the news tend to get a biased, i.e. systematically skewed, view of exactly what is happening. This is not surprising, as the perpetual campaign is largely geared to the media. If I could slip into Bush 41 speak for a moment, I would say that it is, "Target: Tim Russert." You impress Russert. Impress Balz. Impress Nagourney. You get yourself some good campaign coverage. You build your donor base. Donors are the types of people who will "shush" the kids when the campaign coverage comes on in August.

The problem is that there are limits to the value of the perpetual campaign. Most obviously, the average voters who decide who wins and who loses tend not to pay much attention to it. So, it is important not to make too much of it. The bigger problem for the media is that these same voters - like true Americans - do not hestitate to opine about it when queried by a pollster, even though they happen not to know much about it. Not fully realizing this, the media often makes too much of these responses. Hence, Barack Obama can have some $35 million in his back pocket, and his opponent can be declared "inevitable." That is the only way to get from that A to this B.

But the real campaign is just about to begin - and those of us who are serious about our elections can finally get down to the nitty gritty. I observed two relevant data points today about the real Democratic primary campaign.

The first is from Jeanne Cummings at Politico. It concerns the Q3 filiings with the FEC. Cash receipts are not really new points of data in themselves - but the problem is that too few media analysts have drawn the right inferences from them. Cummings writes:

Clinton leads in polls but had yet to best Obama in the money race. She did so in the third quarter, but not nearly as decisively as the campaign had hoped.

In the end, Clinton reported raising $28 million between July 1 and Sept. 30 and having $50 million in cash-on-hand.

Of that, about $34 million can be spent on the primary, while $16 million is for the general election. Clinton also reported carrying $2 million in debts, driving her ready cash figure down to around $32 million.

Obama's report, the last to go public, showed him raising $21 million during the third quarter and ending it with $36 million in cash.

I have argued many times on the site that pundits have wrongly turned the race for dollars into a proxy for the race for votes - and indeed the first paragraph in the above entry indicates that Cummings is doing that, too. But this mode of analysis misses the point. To appreciate the point, all we need to do is imagine all of the campaign "goods" that $68 million can buy (and remember, of course, that the first votes come after Q4, so it is really $68 million plus the fundraising in Q4).

The following story from Mike Dorning of the Chicago Tribune should spark our imaginations. He writes:

Obama, in particular, has invested heavily in a ground campaign in Iowa and other early voting states.

The senator from Illinois has opened 31 field offices across the state, more than any other candidate, establishing local headquarters everywhere from Des Moines to tiny Elkader, population 1,374. Recent campaign filings showed Obama outspending Clinton in Iowa by 20 percent, and by larger margins in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina.

In an organizational feat that required busing in supporters from across the state, the Obama campaign says it drew 3,000 supporters to rally at Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin's annual steak fry last month, an event that traditionally serves as the informal kickoff to the campaign here. And while the campaign would not disclose the size of its paid staff in Iowa, Democratic activists unaffiliated with any candidate said it is clear Obama has by far the largest number of employees in-state.

Wow. Obama has done all that, and he still has $36 million left. These two articles give us a sense of the real campaign going on. It is about persuading voters - who by their own admission are still quite persuadable - in the early states. So, it's about clever television advertisements, solid organizations that can get out the vote, and the campaign message. That is what the real campaign is. It is just now starting. Unfortunately, if you do not live in any of the early states - your access to it is mediated by the press.

This gets me to my next point. I am interested in hearing from residents of Iowa and New Hampshire. For those of us who live outside of these states, our contact with the real campaign is mediated by the press. This is a shame because journalists are far too wrapped up in the perpetual campaign. Performing the "Ginsberg" seems to mean more to them than building an Iowa organization. I'd like to ameliorate this dilemma by getting some first hand accounts of the state of play in Iowa and New Hampshire. Write to me and tell me what the campaign has been like in the last few weeks. I'm particularly interested in the presence on television of the major candidates, whether you've gone to camapaign rallies (and how the turnout has been), and what your overall sense of the race up there is. My preference is for Democrats to write me about the Democratic race, and Republicans to write me about the Republican race. You don't need to be undecided, but you do need to tell me your preference at the moment, and how persuadable you still are. I'll share the responses. So, write to me: jay at realclearpolitics dot com.