a campaign finance revolt

by Robert DeFrance

Published: March 14, 2008

Over the weekend, it was announced that despite outspending his opponent (he’s currently at $113,291,435), Barack Obama still has a very minute lead over Hillary Clinton (who has spent about $105,350,147). Therefore, a CNN reporter concluded that campaign spending hasn’t really done much for Obama or Clinton. In contrast, John McCain won his party’s nomination by spending less than half that of Hillary Clinton (about $48,518,664). I guess when it comes to their own money, Republicans are fiscally responsible and conservative. Anyway, as I ran the numbers I couldn’t help but wonder if there might have been a better way for the candidates to spend their campaign funds (a total of around 267 million dollars).

Consider this: those who have already dropped out of the race spent nearly 350 million. If you include the losers’ expenditures that brings the grand total spent on this year’s election process to over $600 million.

On the bright side, (for those of you who oppose campaign spending), that is down a little from 2004, in which George Bush and John Kerry, alone, spent $600 million. And this year is nothing compared to 2000, where, including candidates and parties, there was over 1.2 billion dollars spent on campaigns! That is a lot of money to spend on mind-numbing ads that only serve to remind us that the candidate has nothing new to say. But what if the candidates didn’t spend the money on their egos?

Face it, we have a national debt of over a trillion dollars but we have yet to clean up New Orleans! America is the wealthiest nation in the world; it should concern us that for a developed nation, the U.S. has one of the highest poverty rates in the world - over 34 million Americans live below the poverty line according to the 2006 U.S. census.

If the money from the last three election cycles, money which ends up in the hands of advertising companies, CEO’s and stock-holders, had been saved for a useful purpose, we would have 2.4 trillion dollars. The only obstacle keeping us from spending that money productively is American’s fascination with the dog and pony show that is the presidential election. It’s ironic; millions will go to bed hungry and uninsured while their candidate diverts life saving funds away from the needy and into the bank accounts of advertising and consulting firms.

So what useful purpose does the spending have other than to demonstrate that we have some very insecure people trying to get into office? Well, apparently they are trying to make us like them. However, most of us do not, nor will we no matter how much money they put into making themselves look good at the expense of their opponents’ reputation. So why not revolutionize the distribution of campaign donations? The candidates need not be alarmed - they can still be as self-interested and shallow as ever - we only want their money and are willing to give them fame and free press in return.

Seriously, want to win an election? Instead of spending money campaigning, donate your millions to the needy. This generosity alone will produce so much free press that the candidate would surely win the nomination, the election and a mass of public support that would make Kennedy envious.

Imagine the new sound bite: “Hi, I’m Hillary Clinton, and I support your pocketbook.”

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