Time’s almost up for 2008 presidential hopefuls to raise money; tonight marks the deadline for campaign fund-raising.

Over the past week, campaign smooth-talkers have been doing their best to collect every last dollar. With a barrage of emails and website messages, the candidates have certainly been hard at work.

Former Senator John Edwards, who earlier this month used his birthday to entice potential donors incorporated the same tactic on behalf of his wife Friday: “July 3rd is Elizabeth’s birthday and a great way to celebrate would be a donation by our June 30th deadline.” In the same message, Edwards also praised his wife for taking-on conservative commentator and complete moron Anne Coulter earlier this week.

On his “Five Brother’s,” blog on his website, Mitt Romney let his son speak for his campaign as Tagg Romney appealed for donations while emphasizing the campaign’s thriftiness.

“As my dad is known to do, the campaign spends every dollar as it it were precious,” he wrote,”we are always looking for cheap flights and try to stay in inexpensive hotels on the road.” To prove this point, Romney’s son includes a photo of an Iowa hotel room he said to have stayed in recently that shows a bed with a faded green blanket and exposed box-springs; the kind of bed we’ve all woken up in with serious regrets about the night before.

And my personal favorite; Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s team sent out an email Friday that commented on Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent assertions about whether he is part of the executive branch or not. The message featured an unflattering photo of Cheney with the pitch: “We promise that during a Biden Administration, Dick Cheney will not be a member of the executive or legislative branch of government.”

With time running out before the tonight’s deadline information has started to get out about how much some of the campaigns have raised in the second quarter. Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Bill Richardson has said he expects to report raising more than $7 million during the period and that he might surpass or at least reach the $9 million goal set by the Edwards camp.

However, you can bet the total won’t match the fund-raising prowess of the Democratic heavyweights; Senator Barack Obama (who has reported topping over 250,000 donors) and Senator Hillary Clinton (who’s campaign is estimated to have raised roughly $27 million this quarter.)

Who oh who, will come out on top? There’s still a couple of hours left before midnight.

Technorati Tags: Campaign 2008, money raising, deadline, presidential hopefuls, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Five Brothers, Mitt Romney, Tagg Romney, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards