Politico hypes Palin fundraising -- but is it really that impressive?

Here's Politico on Sarah Palin's fundraising:

A new financial report filed Sunday evening showed Sarah Palin’s political action committee has taken its fundraising to a higher level – and suggests that she has begun building a more sophisticated political operation in place of a bare-bones organization powered mostly by her rock star status and scrappy on-line presence.

…

In short, for the first time since the 2008 campaign when she was the vice-presidential running mate to GOP presidential candidate John McCain, Palin is supported by a political operation befitting someone considering a presidential run.

Politico found that all so very important that it sent out a “Breaking News” email alert at 9:37 PM last night.

But another news organization’s write-up of the same financial report suggests there may be a bit of hype in Politico’s version of the story.  Here’s CNN: 

Sarah Palin's political action committee raised more than $865,000 over the last three months, according to a newly filed report with the Federal Election Commission – the former Alaska governor's biggest quarterly take since SarahPAC was launched in early 2009.

But the PAC's fundraising so far this year has been roughly on pace with its 2009 efforts. Palin raised more than $1.2 million since the beginning of this year, about $200,000 less than she raised in the second half of 2009.

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The PAC continued to pay a small clutch of consultants, including several who worked closely with Palin during her vice presidential campaign, for domestic and foreign policy advice, political consulting, logistics and speechwriting.

UPDATE: Peter Hamby, who wrote CNN's version of the Palin story, adds via Twitter: "Palin gets another round of breathless 2012 buzz for doing things she is supposed to do: campaign for candidates, raise money, send out mail"