Campaign spending

[Dan Murfman]

For the record according to George Will Americans spent more on potato chips this year than what was spent on the election.

 

[TLSnell1981]

According to who??? The OP was commenting on the mind boggling amount of money spent on this election. It's ironic that not long ago people were concerned about such things to the point that Congress acted in a strong bi-partisan manner to try and curb the unchecked spending on such campaigns. In an irony the "McCain/Feingold" bill was the passed into law. It's only taken 6 years for all of that to go completely out of the window.

Being a good Navy man, McCain went down with his own ship.

So much for campaign finance reform. We are back to "whoever has the most money wins".

 

[Ryoo4]

But the guys platform was all about helping regular people

Tell that to his brother in Kenya who lives in a mud hut and makes $20 per year.

 

[Mrs.Toad]

Tell that to his brother in Kenya who lives in a mud hut and makes $20 per year.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/is_obamas_brother_really_dirt_poor_in.html

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/22/bts.obama.brother/

But reports surfaced in the past few days, springing from an Italian Vanity Fair article saying George Obama is living in a shack and "earning less than a dollar a day."

The reports left him angry.

"I was brought up well. I live well even now," he said. "The magazines, they have exaggerated everything.

 

[AndyLL]

Thanks to Obama breaking his promise to stick with public financing and then winning, McCain/Feingold is officially dead... The sky is once again, the limit.

He didn't. Already discussed. He would have accepted public financing if McCain agreed to limits on all spending including the RNC & DNC.

McCain declined that provision so no agreement.

McCain/Feingold has nothing to do with public financing as far as I know.

 

[marybet]

Many people benefited from the campaign. The office staffs, the writers and producers of the ads, all the companies making the signs and the buttons, etc. Sure it was a lot of money but it also put a lot of people to work.

I donated and it was money well spent.

 

[Tigger Woods]

He didn't. Already discussed. He would have accepted public financing if McCain agreed to limits on all spending including the RNC & DNC.

McCain declined that provision so no agreement.

McCain/Feingold has nothing to do with public financing as far as I know.

In February of 2007 Barack Obama not only promised to accept public financing in the general election if he won the Primaries but put it in writing:

"In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

According to Newsweek, in March, McCain accepted Obama’s “pledge” and announced he would too would accept public financing. Obama then did an “about face” and claimed that he had “never made” any such pledge and then declined.

 

[AndyLL]

In February of 2007 Barack Obama not only promised to accept public financing in the general election if he won the Primaries but put it in writing:

"In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

Just as I said. (bolded section) Obama wanted to limit all spending including by the parties. McCain refused that with reason because typically the RNC has a ton of money compared to the DNC.

At the time it looked like McCain was not going to use public financing because he took millions in loans to finance the primaries.

He waited as long as he could to see what he could raise privately. He ended up paying off those loans using the public financing. ( technically not allowed )

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25259863/

You can have the last word... pointless to still be arguing these things

 

[Galahad]

Just as I said. (bolded section) Obama wanted to limit all spending including by the parties. McCain refused that with reason because typically the RNC has a ton of money compared to the DNC.

At the time it looked like McCain was not going to use public financing because he took millions in loans to finance the primaries.

He waited as long as he could to see what he could raise privately. He ended up paying off those loans using the public financing. ( technically not allowed )

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25259863/

You can have the last word... pointless to still be arguing these things

pilpul and spin. From that piece it seems that Senator Obama's campaign was willing to find jsut about anything to hang a decision to go private on. If McCain was so good at gaming the public system then why didn't we see a sea of 527 ads and such? Doesn't make Obama a bad guy - but I sure hope we've seen and end to Kool-aid drinking or we'll just go though this rancor again and again and again.

 

[Geoff_M]

He didn't. Already discussed. He would have accepted public financing if McCain agreed to limits on all spending including the RNC & DNC.

McCain declined that provision so no agreement.

McCain/Feingold has nothing to do with public financing as far as I know.

Bull whooie..... Obama's excuse was that he had to reject the funds (the first major candidate to do so since Watergate) because he knew that McCain was going to cheat ("game the broken system" as he put it) and he was going to have to fight all of those 527 groups that were going to try and throw the kitchen sink at him... which never materialized.

As a secondary defense, Obama said he had pledged to take the public funds if he could negotiate an agreement with McCain over spending and other issues like 527's. The length of those "negotiations" appears to have consisted of a brief conversation during a meeting between the two candidate's general counsels set up to talk about a possible joint appearance at an Attorneys General conference. Both sides disagree on what exactly was said. McCain's counsel said the discussion was general in nature and wasn't presented as any form of formal "negotiation". Obama's lawyer claimed that enough was said that the discussion made it clear to him that there was no need for further "negotiations"... and they did an about-face on accepting public funds. To most, it would appear that the Obama camp went into the "negotiations" looking for cover to justify their then unannounced decision. Does this sound like "aggressively pursuing" an agreement to you???.

"McCain/Feingold" may not be directly related to the receiving of public funds, but its spirit was to try and reign in the sort of run-away political spending that we witnessed Obama engage in. Obama showed us the folly in future attempts to try and live by that notion. In that regard, the effort at reform is "dead". Outspending your opponent, hobbled by spending limits, 3-to-1 works.

 

[momto2girls]

But the guys platform was all about helping regular people

Ironic, isn't it?

 

[Reflection]

Here's an intersting economic perspective from "Freakonomics."

McCain, the Media, Money, and Montesinos (and Obama Too)
By Stephen J. Dubner

So Barack Obama continues to raise millions upon millions of dollars, and if he wins the election a lot of people will certainly attribute his victory, at least in significant part, to this money.

But should they?

We addressed this topic in Freakonomics. Our argument was based on a clever piece of research by Steve Levitt.... in which he analyzed legislative races in which two opponents ran against each other more than once.....

Here’s how we wrote up the results:
[T]he amount of money spent by the candidates hardly matters at all. A winning candidate can cut his spending in half and lose only 1 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, a losing candidate who doubles his spending can expect to shift the vote in his favor by only that same 1 percent.

What really matters for a political candidate is not how much you spend; what matters is who you are.

Now of course you could argue that money can help change voters’ views of who a candidate is. Isn’t that the purpose of the standard campaign TV ad? (Actually, most of the ads these days seem to want to change voters’ views on the opponent, but that’s just the flip side of the same coin.) And a recent tally of Obama’s spending shows that he has spent $160 million on TV ads, easily dwarfing every other expenditure. Staff salaries, for instance, were $44 million; campaign events cost $16 million.

Now comes word that he spent $21 million on TV in the first week of October alone, and is buying up prime-time network space at the end of October to run a 30-minute infomercial.

As I wrote above, this spending will probably be seen as central to Obama’s victory if he wins. But our argument is that money is more a symptom of a winning campaign than a cause.

In other words: it’s not that raising a lot of money helps a candidate become more appealing and therefore do better; it’s that better candidates raise a lot of money because they are so appealing. Just remember: about a year ago, Mitt Romney was loaded and John McCain was just about broke. If money is so central to elections, why couldn’t Romney put McCain away? And how on earth did McCain end up winning the G.O.P. nomination?

It’s also interesting to note that Obama is using the media — well, buying the media, in the case of the infomercial — to get his message across, while part of McCain’s campaign message is that the media itself is the enemy. The antagonism between the McCain campaign and The Times in particular has been operatic. According to Politico.com, the McCain campaign views The Times as “a partisan rag.”

....So what is the right way to think about the relationship between money, the media, and campaign outcomes? Is it wise for Obama to spend so much on media? Is it wise for McCain to risk alienation of the media? Would all that money and energy be better spent on something else?

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/mccain-the-media-money-and-montesinos-and-obama-too/

Originally Posted by LuvOrlando
But the guys platform was all about helping regular people

There has been no change in Obama's platform to help the middle class. What evidence do you have that suggests otherwise? Lastly, the Obama campaign's finances were built from the contributions of many (i.e., thousands and thousands) rof egular people

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

There is another perspective on that though. Many Democrats and the media did slam Republicans for years for spending more and "buying" the election. Now that they can play too, it's OK to do........

We either need to prohibit private financing or campaigns or eliminate public financing of campaigns.

I'm impressed with Senator McCain sticking to his pledge on that even though it hurt him.

No doubt there's a bit of hypocrisy on both sides, so as far as claims to the political high road? No one gets a pass.

I'm just happy to be on the winning side for once.

 

[Geoff_M]

Here's an intersting economic perspective from "Freakonomics."

It's true that more money doesn't equal a "win", but it's a lot like another saying about money: "Money can't buy you happiness... but it sure helps."

 

[CowboyCO]

There really should be some kind of limit on the amount you can spend. That is a ridiculous amountof money - on both sides. Think of all that could have gone for.

There is when you concede, or agree to public financing. That was the point of the program was to level the playing field. I wouldn't say that too much money was spent by both sides. McCain was limited by federal law as to how much he could raise and spend on the campaign to $84 million dollars. It was pushed very hard by the Democrats to get federal funding passed. You should read the op-ed piece on this issue written by Bob Kerrey, the former Democrat senator from Nebraska.