Jason Horowitz has a great piece in the NY Observer on the depth, breadth, and sheer efficiency of Hillary Clinton's money machine. Horowitz writes, "The sheer scale of what Mrs. Clinton is trying to do, if she can do it, will leave little room for her rivals to profit from the traditional Democratic money network."

Another key graf comes on page two:

"It is hard for other candidates," added Mr. Nemazee, who was mentioned around the time of Mrs. Clinton's announcement as one of a number of unattached bundlers being courted by Mr. Obama's campaign. "There is just so much oxygen available. There are only so many people out there who know how to do this and are willing to do this."

To provide a bit of context to the kind of ruthless discipline with which Hillary's camp approaches fundraising, check out this anecdote leading off Joel Connelly's column in the Seattle PI today:

After filling Maria Cantwell's coffers at a downtown lunch last February, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton slipped away to a private, flawlessly organized reception at a North Seattle home to collect more than $100,000 for her own campaign.

The host couple, the Campions, "maxed out," giving $2,100 apiece, the individual limit set by federal law for each 2006 campaign.

Imagine their surprise, then, when called a few days later by collectors of the Clinton war chest. They were told the donation counted only in New York's Senate primary, and were asked to give another $2,100 apiece to the general election campaign.

"We wavered between being impressed, flattered or insulted by her fundraising machine," said Sonya Campion. "I heard from others at our event that her campaign also called them to let them know the remaining 'balance' they had in order to max out to Hillary."

Two quick points. Clearly, as we learned last time around with Howard Dean, money isn't everything. Furthermore, there is enough wealth floating around in Democratic circles to support at least a few other candidates and keep them in well in the game. But money is a serious advantage and, as you can see, Hillary's camp is dead serious in the way they go about raising it.