U.S. presidential candidates have a message for as many Americans as they can reach: Keep those checks rolling in.

They are approaching the end of the second fund-raising quarter of the year on Saturday with a flurry of events, trying to bring in as much money as possible — and beat expectations.

The idea is not simply to fund their campaigns but give political junkies a way, albeit inexact, to quantify where the candidates stand in the race. As a result, campaigns face accusations of giving a low prediction of how much money they expect to raise so they can declare victory if they beat their own forecast.

On the Democratic side, the front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, is projected to raise $27 million for the quarter. She is pulling out perhaps her most valuable asset, her husband, ex-President Bill Clinton, to give her fund-raising a boost.

In a plea for money emailed to supporters, Bill Clinton called his wife “the best candidate to beat the Republican machine… The fact is, our opponents may very well outraise us — and we can’t afford to lose momentum now.”
She has a fund-raising event in Miami on Friday.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, projected by experts to raise $9 million for the quarter, is turning an attack from a conservative flame-thrower, Ann Coulter, into a way to raise money. After being skewered for calling Edward a bad word six months ago, Coulter said on Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America”: “I’ve learned my lesson. If I’m gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”
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The campaign of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, anticipated to raise $20 million for the period, has a $25 a ticket event in Minneapolis on Friday to culminate what is expected to be a strong
Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, quickly fired back, and a soundbite of her remarks is being sent out to supporters’ cell phones with a request for money. Edwards has a fundraiser on Wednesday in Houston, and has one in Tampa, Florida on Friday while Elizabeth will be in Lexington, Kentucky. His spokesman Eric Schultz said Edwards is ahead of a pace needed to raise $40 million total to compete effectively in the four early primary states, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nev fund-raising quarter. “We feel good about where we are,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Republicans expect former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to lead again in second-quarter fund-raising but the frontrunner on the Republican side, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, expects to do fine.

“We fully expect to have all the necessary resources to effectively compete across the country from Iowa and New Hampshire to California and Florida,” said Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella.

How will the campaign of Arizona Sen. John McCain fare? McCain has angered fellow conservatives by supporting a U.S. immigration overhaul that includes a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. He has ratcheted up his fund-raising events. The McCain campaign will not talk about specific numbers.

Spokesman Brian Jones said the immigration turmoil has taken its toll on McCain. “There’s a fair number of Republican primary voters who are relatively unhappy with the legislation and obviously Sen. McCain is someone who has been leading on this issue,” he said. Having said that however, he added, “We will have the resources necessary to convey his message.”