Money comes rolling in for Obama

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has raised €3m (€2.06m) for his presidential campaign in the 24 hours since the first polls closed on Super Tuesday.

Mr Obama, riding a wave of fundraising both from large donors and small internet contributors, also raised a stunning $32m (€22m) in January.

Meanwhile, rival Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that she lent her campaign $5m (€3.4m) because she was being outdone by Mr Obama.

Buoyed by strong fundraising and a primary calendar this month that plays to his strengths, Mr Obama plans a campaign blitz through a series of states holding contests this weekend and will compete to win primaries in the Mid-Atlantic next week and Hawaii and Wisconsin the following week.

He campaigned in Louisiana today. The state holds its contest on Saturday,

Ms Clinton, with less money to spend and less confident of her prospects in this month’s contests, will instead concentrate on Ohio and Texas, large states with primaries on March 4 and where polling shows her with a significant lead.

She even is looking ahead to Pennsylvania’s primary on April 22, believing a largely elderly population there will favour the former first lady.

Republican front-runner John McCain, meanwhile, appealed to his conservative critics to find “something we can agree on” as he focused on translating his big Super Tuesday wins into the party’s presidential nomination.

His sweep of victories in California, New York and seven other US states failed to end chief rival Mitt Romney’s candidacy, but firmly put the Arizona senator on track for the party’s White House nomination.

Mr McCain sought to smooth his path by attempting to convince his harshest Republican critics who are angered that he breaks with party-line conservative views on issues such as immigration.

“I do hope that at some point we would just calm down a little bit and see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of the party and for the good of the country,” he said, addressing right-wing pundits who argue he is too liberal for the party.