Most expensive presidential campaign-US Election
sets world record
WASHINGTON, USA -- This is the first election in
US history where the two candidates have raised more than
$2.4 billion -setting the world record for the Most expensive
presidential campaign.
Photo: Democratic presidential candidate
Sen. Barack
Obama, D-Ill. waves at a rally at Veteran's Memorial
Arena in Jacksonville, Fla. Monday, Nov. 3, 2008. / AP Photo-Alex
Brandon (enlarge
photo)
The cost of the last presidential campaign
in 2004, considered a peak for its time, was 693 million dollars.
As a historical comparison, the campaign two
decades ago that saw Republican George H.W. Bush succeed Ronald
Reagan at the White House cost 59 million dollars. Historians
believe that the nation's 16th president, Abraham Lincoln,
spent 100,000 dollars in his bid to take the executive office
in 1860.
Since the presidential campaigning began in
January 2007, White House candidates from both parties have
raised $1.5 billion, double the amount collected in 2004 and
triple the figure in 2000. (report by the Centre for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan
watchdog).
...and this is just one of a myriad
of donation records that have been smashed.
Data compiled by Obama's
campaign show that by Election Day, Obama
will have outspent McCain and the RNC, $278 million to $176
million on broadcast and cable TV, including $3 million for
last night's 30-minute infomercial on seven national television
networks.
With the internet being harnessed to amass political
donations on a huge scale for the first time, Democratic challenger
Barack
Obama has managed to smash all previous records –
raising $639m to date, according to the Federal Election Commission.
(FEC).
Rival John McCain, of the Republican party - who
has admitted that he does not send email, let alone use the
internet regularly - has raised just over half that - $335m.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said: "Not since
Richard Nixon has a candidate tried to buy his way into the
Oval Office . . . until Barack Obama."
Obama
spokesman Nick Shapiro answered: "Barack Obama's campaign
has been funded by more than 3.1 million hard-working Americans
giving small donations."
Readers comments: What is impressive about
the funds built up by the Obama campaign is how much has come
from small donations by hundreds of thousands of ordinary
Americans - this is refreshing after years of the Republicans
being bankrolled chiefly by big corporations (eg. Enron, Halliburton).
-Ruskee, London on Timesonline forum
Obama,
the first major party candidate to forgo public funding since
the post-Watergate reform law went into effect in 1976, has
smashed fund-raising records, taking in more than $600 million
during the campaign, including the primary campaign, almost
all from individual donors.
McCain has raised $358 million, including
$84.1 million in public funds for the last two months of the
general election. McCain counted on national party money to
help offset the Obama financial onslaught.
Individual donations are at the heart of the American
political donation process, with strict limits on who can
and cannot donate, and how much one person can donate - $2,300
in case you were wondering.
Unsurprisingly, some $42m has come from the securities
and investment industry – ranking third behind retired donors
($103.9m) and lawyers ($84m) – in the US Presidential election
race, which includes monies that went to unsuccessful candidates
including Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney.
Of that money, $12.6m has gone to
Obama, and $7.9m to McCain, with New York favourites
Mrs Clinton and Rudi Giuliani – she being the State’s junior
Senator, him being the former Mayor - receiving $6.1m and
$5m respectively, even though their campaigns finished months
ago.
UK's "Daily Telegraph" notes: "But
whatever the donations, and whoever they have come from, as
the polls open across America today, all the time for spending
will be over – and it will be the power of the ballot, rather
than the power of the dollar, which will provide the final
results."
