Federal Election Commission reports for the third quarter of this year were due on October 15, and President Barack Obama continues to build on his money advantage over the Republican field. On the GOP side, Texas Governor Rick Perry outraised former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for the quarter and has slightly more cash on hand, while all other candidates lag far behind.

Highlights from the presidential candidates’ FEC filings are after the jump.

Obama for America’s FEC report is here. The president’s re-election campaign brought in $42,090,011.38 and spent $17,790,313.67, leaving $61,403,710.55 cash on hand and $1,709,300.30 in debts and obligations as of September 30. Obama raised an additional $27.3 million for the Democratic National Committee during the quarter. Campaign manager Jim Messina emphasized that Obama for America has collected “nearly a million donations, with about 98 percent coming in donations of $250 or less.” Those are big numbers, but not as big as Obama’s fundraising numbers from the previous quarter. Glenn Thrush summed up the positive and negative spin on the numbers:

“We did more with less this quarter – we canceled a series of events over the summer as congressional negotiations were ongoing, and our supporters stepped up in their stead,” wrote an Obama campaign official in an email. “Even more supporters contributed this quarter and we’re now within striking distance of one million donors, something it took us a year to accomplish between Feb 07 and Feb 08, and that was in the midst of an energetic primary.”

On paper, it’s a big score, especially for the typically less productive third quarter, which includes the dead month of August. In addition, Obama had to deal with the headwinds of a grueling debt ceiling debate, which forced Obama him to postpone several fundraisers. But the positive spin obscures a few less flattering realities for a re-election effort that is expected to rake in between $700 million and $1 billion by election day.

For his re-election effort, George W. Bush and the Republican National Committee raised more in the third quarter of 2003 (about $72 million in 2003 dollars) than Obama and the DNC have; And in Bush’s case, he did it with less work, attending about half the number of fundraisers in the first nine months of that year than Obama has attended so far in 2011, according to Mark Knoller of CBS, the unofficial chronicler of presidential comings and goings.

“Compared to President Bush in 2003, Obama is having to work harder, attend more fundraisers and shake more big donor hands to raise the money he has coming in,” a senior GOP official told POLITICO.

The eventual Republican nominee will likely raise hundreds of millions of dollars even after starting out way behind Obama in terms of cash. I don’t think the president can count on being able to outspend his opponent by much, if at all, particularly when you consider how many conservative 527 groups, PACs and super-PACs will be involved in next year’s campaign.

For now, Perry is (barely) the money leader in the Republican field. His presidential campaign’s FEC report listed $17,200,232.07 in contributions, $2,121,816.85 in disbursements and $15,078,415.22 cash on hand with $339,119.73 in debts and obligations. When Perry entered the presidential race in mid-August, he surged in nationwide opinion polls and started to receive front-runner treatment from the political media. A few poor debate performances later, Perry is no longer favored to beat Romney. I’ll be curious to see whether he can keep fundraising at this pace during the fourth quarter.

Romney wasn’t able to match his second-quarter fundraising, which was way ahead of the GOP competition. For the third quarter, his reported raising $14,222,570.66 and spending $12,281,100.24, leaving $14,656,965.83 cash on hand with no debts as of September 30. That’s a high burn rate, but Romney should be able to raise a lot of money in the fourth quarter, especially now that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has ruled out running himself and is backing Romney.

Representative Ron Paul of Texas took third place in terms of money raised during the third quarter and cash on hand. His campaign reported $8,268,499.92 in contributions between July 1 and September 30, $7,559,908.76 in expenditures and $3,674,768.16 cash on hand with no debts. Paul spent a lot of money before the Republican Party of Iowa’s straw poll in August and has been advertising more on television than most of his rivals.

Representative Michele Bachmann was gaining steam during the first half of the third quarter, but her poll numbers have dropped nationwide and in the early state since mid-August. Her FEC filing reported $3,907,748.06 in contributions during the third quarter, $5,947,630.95 in expenditures and just $1,339,184.10 cash on hand with $549,604.07 in debts and obligations as of September 30.

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain started surging in the past few weeks, but he has little campaign organization and not much money to build one. Friends of Herman Cain reported raising $2,813,341.52 and spending $1,967,152.00, leaving $1,333,778.56 cash on hand with $675,000.00 in debts and obligations as of September 30.

After that, things start looking very bleak for the Republican field. Rick Santorum for President raised $704,199.37 and spent $743,757.29, leaving $189,556.94 cash on hand with $71,866.19 in debts and obligations. The former U.S. senator looks more like he’s running for the vice-presidential nomination, or perhaps a cabinet post in the next administration.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich actually managed to raise more than his presidential campaign spent during the third quarter, but not by much. His FEC filing reports $807,962.45 in contributions, $776,767.90 in expenditures and $353,416.71 cash on hand. The big problem for Gingrich is that his campaign is carrying $1,192,865.82 in debts and obligations. His 527 organization American Solutions has closed its doors, so Gingrich doesn’t have an obvious fallback to support his luxury lifestyle.

Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is carrying more presidential campaign debt than Gingrich, but he’s independently wealthy, so he can solve the problem by not paying back his own loans to the campaign. Huntsman’s latest FEC report is here. He collected $4,514,188.95 during the third quarter and spent $4,186,574.45. As of September 30, his campaign had $327,614.50 cash on hand and a massive $3,145,593.75 in debts and obligations. Most of the debt is owed to the candidate himself.

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