The aftershocks from last week's fundraising numbers were still reverberating through Your Nation's Capital this weekend as everyone tried to make sense of:

1. How did Barack Obama manage to out-raise Hillary Clinton in Primary Election money, when Hillary had a head start of months, if not years?

A. Even so, how is it that Obama remains between 7 and 24 percentage points behind Clinton in the national polling?

2. How did Mitt Romney manage to out-raise the rest of the GOP field by 50% and yet remain in single digits behind (or even with) both Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich in national polls?

3. How did McCain manage to come in dead last in fundraising among the first tier candidates on either side and still be only slightly behind Giuliani in Iowa and even or ahead in New Hampshire?

Responding to the talking points as put out by the Democratic National Committee, the Washington press corps was eager to ask anyone who would answer their phone whether the amount of money reported raised by all Democratic candidates (about $78 million) compared to the amount raised by Republicans (about $51 million) indicated the GOP as we know it was about to disappear?

When I pointed to the fact that in just about every poll either Rudy Giuliani or John McCain leads either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in head-to-head match-ups, I heard the polite equivalent of a mental "click" as the reporter hung up the intellectual phone.

POLITICAL PUNDIT LESSON:

When a Conventional Wisdom Wave is building, paddle like the devil and ride it in.

You won't get quoted by swimming into it.

END POLITICAL PUNDIT LESSON

Reviewing the bidding from last week: The Clinton camp was celebrating like a rookie running back scoring his first NFL touchdown after announcing they had raised $26 million.

Obama didn't report until Wednesday, when he came in at $25 million - within the margin of error. But that wasn't all. It came to pass that nearly all of Obama's money was earmarked for the primary season; six million of Clinton's contributions were listed for the general election, meaning Obama actually beat Clinton in primary contributions. Continued...