If my descriptions of life on the campaign trail have seemed a little less glowing recently, it is because much of my past week has been spent begging for the money we will need to get through the next six weeks.   Most of the begging is done by phone: the sequence is roughly (1) friend answers phone, (2) Matt identifies himself, (3) friend sighs deeply and silently reminisces about when Matt used to call for something other than money, (4) friend says “I know why you are calling,” explains that other candidates have bled them so dry that they are hocking their family jewelry, and then (5) friend gives Matt something anyway because my friends are pretty good people.

We did, however, have a couple of very successful events this week.  One of them was put on by my former attorney colleagues at Young, Conaway—I had suggested “give him the money now or he’s going to lose and be back here wanting a job” as a theme, but they went in a different direction.   And the second was put on by my old law school friend Seth in New York, who gathered a few of his financial community buddies who frequently hit him up for contributions to ask that they do the same.  As I spoke, I believe that the attendees were watching the financial markets crash on their blackberries, so in a few days we will see if the Denn New York fundraising trip is one more small victim of the deregulation experiment on Wall Street.