THE US: "POW!" "SPLAT!" The donations that dropped through the door of the Democratic Party last month would have floored even a Ninja Turtle.
But then just one of them, a cool $7 million, the largest political donation ever reported, came from Mr Haim Saban, the man who made a billion dollars producing the said turtles for TV. Another Hollywood supporter also topped the previous record of $1.2 miliion with a cheque for $5 million.
The two donations, products of the hard sell of the party's Mr Money and national chairman, Mr Terry McAuliffe, will allow the Democrats to start building their all-singing, all-dancing new $30 million HQ, equipped with TV studios and mass phone banks.
That the two contributions should become known last week, as Congress finally passed campaign finance reform legislation, was mildly embarassing. Mr Saban's timely gesture works out at over 70 times the maximum an individual will be allowed to give to a political party under the new, Democrat-supported legislation.
Nevertheless, Democrats insist that accusations of hypocrisy are not justified. The new HQ will only begin to level the playing field against the monster money machine of the Republicans.
Mr McAuliffe may breathe a sigh of relief that he has got in ahead of the Bill, but its dogged supporters, who have fought for seven years to get the measure through Congress, are well aware that they have not yet crossed the final hurdle.
Mr Bush's reluctance to sign into law what he calls "flawed" legislation now faces a formidable challenge in the courts. There an alliance ranging from the Republican right to their usual foes in the American Civil Liberties Union will argue the law breaches the free speech provisions of the Constitution. Free speech in this case is the right to spend money promoting your ideas.
In the end the legislation, sponsored in the Senate by maverick Republican and presidential candidate, Mr John McCain, and Democrat, Mr Russ Feingold, and in the House by Representatives Martin Meehan and Christopher Shays, proved irresistible in the fallout from the Enron debacle.
Its main provisions bar the use of unregulated "soft money" advertisements, while raising the amount individuals can contribute to candidates in each election cycle.
It also bans issue ads from campaign groups for 60 days before an election. Most candidates circumvent campaign cash limits by paying for issue ads which, although not advocating specific candidates, boost their campaigns. In the end the difference between hard money and soft money ads is largely academic, making controls on the former redundant.
The court challenge, if the highly political Supreme Court decides to take the case, will revisit Buckley v Valeo in 1976. On that occasion it ruled that while limits on campaign spending would be unconstitutional, limits on the amounts that can be given to candidates or parties would not.
