The Obama campaign has broken its monthly fundraising record, announcing it raked in $150 million for September. The campaign has now raised $600 million, reports the New York Times. Barack Obama‘s campaign has now raised almost as much as was raised in private donations by all the major party candidates in the 2004 election.

“It is a remarkable ascent to previously unimagined financial heights — Mr. Obama’s September total more than doubled the record $66 million he collected in August — that has been cheered by some and decried by others concerned about the influence of money in politics. The impact on the way presidential campaigns are financed is likely to be profound, potentially providing an epitaph on the tombstone of the existing public finance system.

“Campaign finance watchdog groups said Sunday that Mr. Obama’s September haul bolstered their arguments for the need to revamp the presidential public financing system to restore its relevancy. It is an effort that has recently faltered in Congress.”

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