Clinton Says She Raised Enough to Compete

March was the second-best fundraising month for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who raised $20 million in contributions. In any normal election year, Clinton's achievement would be heralded.

On Thursday night, the campaigns of Senators Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John McCain, R-Ariz., will release details of their campaign finances for the month of February.

(ABCNEWS)

But 2008 is not a normal year and Clinton's big news is overshadowed by the announcement from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Clinton's rival, that he raised twice that amount -- more than $40 million -- in March, his most difficult month of the campaign yet, in which he was routinely dogged about controversial comments made by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"What has been remarkable about this campaign is the million-plus donors that we've created -- mostly online -- are able [to] sustain our campaign, I think, indefinitely through $25, $50 and $100 contributions," Obama told reporters in Lancaster, Pa., March 31. "It's a lot easier to maintain a budget when you've got a million small donors who are there with you and believe in what you are doing compared to if you were raising $2,300 checks from people who at some point tap out."

Obama's campaign pointed out that 218,000 of its donors in March were first-time contributors. Donors as a whole gave, on average, $96.

"I got a money order from a woman for $3, which I appreciated," Obama told a crowd in Greensboro, N.C., last week.

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Clinton's $20 million may not be as much as it sounds, given the $8.7 million in debts she reported at the end of last quarter and the $5 million she loaned herself. But despite the difference in contributions, Clinton said she has no intentions of calling it quits.

"I'll have enough money to compete. Obviously Sen. Obama has more than enough money to compete," she told reporters in Los Angeles, noting, "I am getting used to being outspent."

Clinton noted that Obama's money advantage doesn't always translate to victories. "I think I was outspent 4-1 in Ohio and 3-1 in Texas," she said, "and goodness, I think I was outspent 5-1 in Rhode Island."

Clinton took a moment from the rigors of the campaign trail Thursday night to appear on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno.

"I was worried I wasn't going to make it," Clinton said. "I was pinned down by sniper fire."

That quip referred to Clinton's biggest gaffe of the last month in which she falsely claimed she had come under sniper fire while visiting Tuzla, Bosnia, in 1996. She later said she "misspoke" about her experience there, though the sniper fire story is one she has told several times.

Clinton has also taken heat for outbursts on the trail by her husband, former President Clinton.

"When you are supporting someone you love, you really do take it very much to heart," she told Leno. "I told him 'OK, honey, that's all right we don't have to go get excited about it.' So, he's doing a great job for me, but he gets a little carried away sometimes."