About today's fundraising posts: I'm putting my faith in Peter Daou's word right now. As Marc Ambinder blogged earlier today, the only thing we have to go on when conveying information (can you call it reporting?) about the campaigns' online fundraising numbers is the word of a staffer who has been good to his word before.

But given how funky this stuff is, I'm thinking that all of us should start referring to claims about money raised online with the word "alleged" as a modifier. As in, yesterday, Clinton "allegedly raised $10 million" and Obama "allegedly raised $XX." Or, the word "claimed" as in "the McCain campaign claimed to have raised $YY."

Because we really don't know, and we won't know until weeks or months after the fact, unless the campaigns start opening up and post their actual donor data (names, city/state, amount) in real time, and in searchable form, the way Ron Paul did. There's no technological reason why they can't do this, by the way, and I've argued that it would help their fundraising more than it might hurt them (in terms of letting their opponent know some deep dark secrets about who is supporting whom).

Given how important the perception of success is right now, there must be awfully strong temptations inside the campaigns to goose these numbers. Heck, they spin everything else that isn't nailed down, right?

So, I think I am going to start qualifying all these posts about online fundraising. Show me the money, indeed.