"A political campaign is more than a traveling debate society," Slate's Jack Shafer wrote last year.

So let's get right to it: The Bay State Banner's Yawu Miller and the Boston Phoenix's David Bernstein cast a critical eye on the reports that are coming into the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

The top five with the most cash on hand, according to Bernstein: John Connolly, Stephen Murphy, Felix Arroyo, Ayanna Pressley, and Andrew Kenneally.

Miller writes: "Pressley aside, only two other black candidates have raised more than $20,000. Patrick administration official Tito Jackson has raised $24,130. Egobudike Ezedi, on leave from his job heading the Roxbury YMCA, has raised $25,427 (not quite the $45,000 he told the Banner he had raised in a May interview)."