And if you count the money raised for the Democratic National Committee – which Obama and the media do – the total comes to $70 million raised for the campaign and DNC combined. It’s certainly better than the $55 million estimate the Obama campaign floated around to lower expectations recently, but it falls short of the $86 million the campaign and DNC raised last quarter:

Exceeding the expectations some Democrats had set, the Obama re-election campaign raised $42.8 million in the period running from July through the end of September, an Obama campaign aide told CNN.

Overall, the campaign announced Thursday it and the Democratic National Committee brought in more than $70 million in the third quarter of fundraising.

It’s still an impressive number, and will probably be larger than the Republican field’s combined haul. But Ed Morrissey calculates that Obama’s on track to fall very short of his $1 billion fundraising goal:

Obama raised $47 million for his campaign in Q2, so he dropped a little off the pace in Q3.  That averages out to $44.9 million, but let’s call it $45 million just to simplify the math.  Obama has three more quarters of fundraising in the primary season, which would mean that Obama is on pace to raise $225 million before next summer. That’s not bad, but it’s a long way from raising a billion dollars, or even $745 million.

The Obama campaign had been prepping for lower numbers this quarter, citing Obama’s schedule as the reason he wasn’t able to get out of town for fundraisers. But considering the president’s poll numbers during the last few months, reduced enthusiasm had to have played a role.