Obama claims that he was outspent by McCain in 2008 campaign?

Is this serious? How big of whoopers is Obama allowed to get away with? From remarks that Obama gave at Carnegie Mellon University on July 6, 2012.

And you know what, I might be worried about all this money being spent if it wasn’t for my memories of previous campaigns. That first campaign I ran, the last campaign I ran in 2008 -- I’ve been outspent before. I’ve had a lot of money thrown at me before. . . .

Of course, the difference was so small that it is easy for Obama to get confused by this. After all, he only outspent McCain by 4 to 1 after labor day. From Bloomberg:

Arizona Senator McCain, unlike Obama, accepted $84.1 million in public financing for the general election, a decision that barred him from raising money privately. Obama outspent him by a 4-1 margin between Sept. 1 and Nov. 24, FEC records show. . . .

As to the first campaign that Obama ran, he got the incumbent and all the other candidates thrown off the ballot by successfully challenging their petition signatures. He had no opposition in the Democratic primary and in his district there were so few Republicans that winning the primary was the same as winning the general election. If there was no one running against him in the primary, how exactly could have been outspent in the election? From the Chicago Tribune:

There they began the tedious process of challenging hundreds of signatures on the nominating petitions of state Sen. Alice Palmer, the longtime progressive activist from the city's South Side. And they kept challenging petitions until every one of Obama's four Democratic primary rivals was forced off the ballot. . . .

Finally, here is a slightly related example of Obama making up claims about campaign expenditures in another race. The only irony that I would raise is that if you can dismiss Walker's win because he supposedly outspent his opponent, what does that mean about Obama's 2008 win where he really did massively outspend McCain? UPDATE: Obama's campaign has spent $100 million on attack ads in swing states.

President Barack Obama's campaign has spent nearly $100 million on television commercials in selected battleground states so far, unleashing a sustained early barrage designed to create lasting, negative impressions of Republican Mitt Romney before he and his allies ramp up for the fall. In a reflection of campaign strategy, more than one-fifth of the president's ad spending has been in Ohio, a state that looms as a must-win for Romney more so than for Obama. Florida ranks second and Virginia third, according to organizations that track media spending and other sources. About three-quarters of the president's advertising has been critical of Romney as Obama struggles to turn the election into a choice between him and his rival, rather than a referendum on his own handling of the weak economy. Obama's television ad spending dwarfs the Romney campaign's so far by a margin of 4-1 or more. It is at rough parity with the Republican challenger and several outside GOP-led organizations combined. They appear positioned to outspend the president and his allies this fall, perhaps heavily. . . .

UPDATE:  Apparently, Obama has no shame on this point because he continues to make the claim over and over again.  From August 14, 2012:

And they're just going to say it over and over again.  Over and over again.  You're going to get sick of it -- you already are.  And you know, I've got to admit, I would be worried, given the amount of money that is being spent, if it weren't for Iowa; if it weren't for what I remember about 2008.  See, we've been outspent before.  We've been counted out before. . . .