Obama reaches fundrasiing goal, leads in Iowa

There is reason to celebrate in the Barack Obama camp today as it was announced the campaign had met both of its goals for the third quarter fundraising deadline.

A note from campaign manager David Plouffe indicated the campaign has collected more than 350,000 donors contributed at least 500,000 donations by Sunday, the last day of the 3rd quarter.

Sometime tomorrow we should find out which candidates had taken in the most cash for the quarter, which traditionally a slow one for raising money.

The Obama camp also got good news from a just-released Newsweek poll that shows Barack leading in the first primary state of Iowa. Obama won 28 percent in that poll while Clinton gets 24 percent and Edwards has 22 percent.

If one includes second and third place votes in the scoring of the poll, Barack leads by eight points.

Obama's campaign strategy is to do well in the early states and build up momentum toward Super Duper Tuesday.

Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, D-Il., shakes hands during stop in Concord, N.H., Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007. AP Photo/Jim Cole via Yahoo News.