The results are in, and they're mostly good. Yesterday's Peter Schiff money bomb raised almost $750,000. The morning after, his total for the event stands at $730,475 at 9:50 AM Eastern Time.

Compare this to the previous $25,000 money bomb, and the results represent a dramatic improvement indeed. On the other hand, they didn't reach the original $1 million goal set by Schiff's supporters. Is that important? Supporters will probably say no, it's not. What's important is that a significant amount of money was raised, an amount that puts Schiff's coffers in the same neighborhood as Republican front runner Rob Simmons and former House speaker Tom Foley.

On the other hand, Schiff has a long way to go. According to a Quinnipiac poll released July 23, 2009, Simmons is far-and-away the front runner in the early stages of the Republican race, while Schiff has virtually no voter support at all. In other words, if Schiff does pull the trigger and commit to running, he'll be starting from ground zero in terms of popular support. Take a look at Quinnipiac's percentages of support from its three most recent polls:

7/23 5/27 4/2 Simmons 42% 52% 32% Foley 5% 7% 4% Schiff – – – Caligiuri 5% 7% 4% Someone Else 1% – 2% Wouldn't Vote 1% 1% 2% Don't Know / No Answer 45% 33% 56%

In other words, despite having his name included in the poll, Schiff doesn't score any support among registered Republican voters. Even State Sen. Sam Caligiuri, considered by nearly everyone to be a long-shot in the race, scored some measurable amount of support, but Schiff is still completely failing to register with Republicans.

Of course, Schiff supporters do have some hope, given that all three polls show somewhere between 33% and 56% of Republican voters can conceivably be swayed in Schiff's direction between now and next year. Also, primary turnouts are usually much smaller than general election turnouts, meaning that Schiff has a lower target he needs to hit in order to win the nomination. On the other hand, voters who tend to vote in primaries tend to be mainstream party supporters, and those supporters tend to support the candidate favored by party leadership. That means the Schiff campaign will need to find an equal number of Republicans willing to break old patterns by voting in a primary. That's a lot easier said than done. If they actually hope to achieve that goal, Schiff supporters will have to start right now.

The key to a dark horse winning anything is early organization. If Schiff's supporters want him to win in Connecticut, they need to build that organization right now. They need to quickly establish precinct captains everywhere in the Constitution State. They need to begin lit dropping and sign posting before the end of 2009. They need to work the voters before the big candidates kick their campaigns into gear. In other words, they need to build some serious name recognition for Schiff now…not later.

It's great to bask in the success of an off-year money bomb success. They just better not bask too long and risk sunburn.