Now that Barack Obama has been chosen as the 44th president, he is working on putting together his cabinet as well as planning for the transition and inauguration into office. To make the transition successful and the inauguration an appropriate celebration, Obama needs to first raise the necessary funds. While there is no law that restricts sources of funding or the amount of money the inaugural committee can accept, past presidents usually have imposed donation caps. One contributing factor of this policy can source from fear of public criticism. So, President elect Barack Obama has followed this trend of setting donation caps, though his cap is significantly lower, at $50,000 for a single donor. Additionally, he has also refused to accept donations from lobbyists, political action committees and corporations.
In comparison, in the past presidents have accepted donations up to $250,000 per donor. In 2005, President George W. Bush had a cap of $250,000 and raised 42.3 million dollars for his inauguration, almost double Clinton’s 1997 inauguration funding of $23.7 million. This money was spent on things like fireworks, parades, concerts and balls. At least 90% of Bush’s this funding came from lobbyists, and at least $6.3 million is attributed to the investment and finance industry alone. The $42.3 million doesn’t even include the 100 million plus dollars that the District of Columbia government must spend on set-up, clean up, and security fees as well as a national holiday for federal workers.
Most think that Obama will be able to raise enough for the event with ease, even with his tight donation guidelines. After all, during the election season he was able to raise $639 million, about half of which was raised through donations of $200 or less.
President elect Obama’s inaugural committee currently consists of Julianna Smoot and Penny Pritzker, the finance director and finance chair of his presidential campaign. The committee expects the event to be rather expensive compared to past events because they are trying to hold a larger number of public events than in previous years. They are expecting over a million people at the event in on January 20th, but there are currently only 240,000 tickets to the swearing in ceremony. The committee is working on ways to allow more people to attend the event.
Much of the money that Obama raises will be devoted to opening the National Mall space for attendees. At inauguration there will be gigantic television screens and speakers systems lining the streets so that spectators will be able to see the event. This technology will make up a large potion of the total cost.
The Inaugural Committee is still in the planning phase of deciding which activities will accompany the swearing in ceremony. Since many people are so ecstatic about Obama’s victory, some want an extravagant inauguration to honor the historical moment. On the other hand, many are also feeling sensitive to the current state of the country with the economic crisis and the fact that American troops are still fighting overseas. They feel that it is important to tone down the expenses for the event to show respect for those having economic troubles. Most importantly, the inauguration needs to have a theme of unity and emphasize inclusiveness.
For further reading:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/how-lavish-should-the-inauguration-be/#more-7649
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/obama-to-limit-inaugural-donations/
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/the-inauguration-planning-team-taking-shape/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/18/obama.fundraising.transition/
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obamas-inauguration-committee-limits-donations-2008-11-25.html
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1860
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Where is the money being spent?
So where is all that money your donating really going? Of the $470 million that Obama has spent, 48% of it has gone to media, 32% has gone to administrative costs, 10% has gone to campaign expenses, and all other costs are negligible. Similarly, McCain has spent 36% on media, 32% on administrative costs, and 10% on campaign expenses out of his total $262 million total expenses. Taking a closer look at media expenses Obama has spent $160 million on television broadcast, $13 million on print media and $10 million on Internet ads. Interestingly, McCain has only spent around a third of what Obama has spent on broadcast media, $63 million. As far as administrative costs, Obama has spent the most on salaries and travel whereas McCain has spent it on travel and postage. Obama has spent $44 million on travel compared to McCain’s $26 million. Both candidates have used their campaign expense sector for campaign events and polls, but Obama has spent $21 million on polling and research while McCain has only spent $1.7 million. One reason for this is that Obama spends money researching locations for his events and speeches, unlike McCain.
Another outlet for McCain’s spending in on Sarah Palin. In fact, in October the campaign member with the highest salary was Palin’s traveling makeup artist, Amy Strozzi. She was paid a total of $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone. Also, Palin’s hair stylist got paid $10,000 for that same period of time.
On October 29, Obama aired a 30 minute infomercial that was shown on CBS, NBC, Fox, and 4 other channels. It reached an astounding 33.6 million viewers. On typical nights, those seven channels have about three million fewer voters. The number of viewers is incredible considering that the final game of the World Series and the finale of American Idol also appeared at the same time. In regards to race, the infomercial reached the minorities as well. There were about 6 million African American viewers and 5 million Hispanic viewers. As a result of this 30 minute spotlight, Obama’s approval ratings became higher than ever. The cost of this ad was nothing insignificant. For the 30 minute slot on 7 networks Obama paid over 5 million dollars, including $900,000 to the three major news stations. Check out the infomercial:
So what do all of these numbers mean? Obviously Barack Obama is running a larger, more expensive campaign than John McCain, but much of that has to do with available funds. Historically this is the most expensive campaign season ever, and we will see the results of this exorbitant spending extremely soon.
For further reading:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/pains-makeup-stylist-fetches-highest-salary-in-2-week-period/?scp=3&sq=campaign%20finance&st=cse
www.opensecrets.org
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/31/ustelevision-barackobama
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2008/10/30/2008-10-30_barack_obamas_infomercial_got_335_millio.html
Another outlet for McCain’s spending in on Sarah Palin. In fact, in October the campaign member with the highest salary was Palin’s traveling makeup artist, Amy Strozzi. She was paid a total of $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone. Also, Palin’s hair stylist got paid $10,000 for that same period of time.
On October 29, Obama aired a 30 minute infomercial that was shown on CBS, NBC, Fox, and 4 other channels. It reached an astounding 33.6 million viewers. On typical nights, those seven channels have about three million fewer voters. The number of viewers is incredible considering that the final game of the World Series and the finale of American Idol also appeared at the same time. In regards to race, the infomercial reached the minorities as well. There were about 6 million African American viewers and 5 million Hispanic viewers. As a result of this 30 minute spotlight, Obama’s approval ratings became higher than ever. The cost of this ad was nothing insignificant. For the 30 minute slot on 7 networks Obama paid over 5 million dollars, including $900,000 to the three major news stations. Check out the infomercial:
So what do all of these numbers mean? Obviously Barack Obama is running a larger, more expensive campaign than John McCain, but much of that has to do with available funds. Historically this is the most expensive campaign season ever, and we will see the results of this exorbitant spending extremely soon.
For further reading:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/pains-makeup-stylist-fetches-highest-salary-in-2-week-period/?scp=3&sq=campaign%20finance&st=cse
www.opensecrets.org
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/31/ustelevision-barackobama
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2008/10/30/2008-10-30_barack_obamas_infomercial_got_335_millio.html
Monday, November 3, 2008
Which industires are giving?
When looking at which industries are donating most to the political campaigns, it is evident that the top two categories are lawyers and retirees. Lawyers have given the Obama campaign $36 million and the McCain campaign $9 million, and retirees have given Obama $40 million and McCain $32 million. While both have done extremely well getting contributions from both groups, it is important to point out McCain’s significantly high level of support form retirees. This goes along with McCain’s traditional base of support: older conservative whites, including those who are racially conservative. This past June and July, McCain raised nearly twice that of Obama from retirees, $8.1 million compared to $4.5 million. That’s a total of $12.6 million donated to by retirees, more than any other industry during that time period. Out of political donations by retirees, 64% of funds have gone to McCain.
Following those two industries, McCain is mainly funded by the security, investment, oil and gas, and real estate industries. McCain’s top donors include Merrill Lynch, at $359,000, Citigroup Inc, at $296,00, and Morgan Stanley, at $262,000. These commercial banking companies, along with a slew of others, total $1.9 million in donations to McCain. Also, none of McCain’s major donors are universities.
In comparison, Obama is funded by those in education, entertainment, the Internet and security and investment. His top donors include the University of California, at $909,000, Goldman Sachs, at $874,000, and Harvard University, at $717,000. Of his top 20 donors, four of them are major universities, and as of July 2008 Obama had raised $10 million from universities. Obama’s commercial banking donations add up to $2 million and include companies like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Another industry that has given significant amounts of money is the tech industry. Unlike the banking and real estate industries, technology had no ties to political parties or families when the presidential election of 2008 began. So, Obama claimed the Silicon Valley in California as his own. Because the industry had no ties and because it was so geared towards the younger crowd, this was a perfect outlet for Obama. Young entrepreneurs in the industry, like 38 year-old Steve Spinner, have been the key to raising large sums of money. Through social networking on Facebook, MySpace and MyYahoo Spinner raised over $250,000 for Obama. Other young entrepreneurs, like Chris Hughes who is a co-founder of Facebook, went to Chicago to work on the campaign full-time during the campaign season. Together these young techies developed My.BarackObama.com, a social networking site in which a large component was fundraising. The site generated over 200 million dollars for the campaign.
In short, the main industries giving to the 2008 presidential campaigns are lawyers, retirees, security and investment, commercial banking, education and technology.
Here is a great chart where you can see donations by industry from 1990-2008. The vertical axis on the left represents donations to Republicans and the horizontal axis represents donations to Democrats. You can change the time period by moving the scroll bar at the bottom at the center or pressing the play button.
For further reading:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/campaign-08-most-expensive-ever/?scp=2&sq=campaign%20spending&st=cse
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance
www.opensecrets.org
Following those two industries, McCain is mainly funded by the security, investment, oil and gas, and real estate industries. McCain’s top donors include Merrill Lynch, at $359,000, Citigroup Inc, at $296,00, and Morgan Stanley, at $262,000. These commercial banking companies, along with a slew of others, total $1.9 million in donations to McCain. Also, none of McCain’s major donors are universities.
In comparison, Obama is funded by those in education, entertainment, the Internet and security and investment. His top donors include the University of California, at $909,000, Goldman Sachs, at $874,000, and Harvard University, at $717,000. Of his top 20 donors, four of them are major universities, and as of July 2008 Obama had raised $10 million from universities. Obama’s commercial banking donations add up to $2 million and include companies like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Another industry that has given significant amounts of money is the tech industry. Unlike the banking and real estate industries, technology had no ties to political parties or families when the presidential election of 2008 began. So, Obama claimed the Silicon Valley in California as his own. Because the industry had no ties and because it was so geared towards the younger crowd, this was a perfect outlet for Obama. Young entrepreneurs in the industry, like 38 year-old Steve Spinner, have been the key to raising large sums of money. Through social networking on Facebook, MySpace and MyYahoo Spinner raised over $250,000 for Obama. Other young entrepreneurs, like Chris Hughes who is a co-founder of Facebook, went to Chicago to work on the campaign full-time during the campaign season. Together these young techies developed My.BarackObama.com, a social networking site in which a large component was fundraising. The site generated over 200 million dollars for the campaign.
In short, the main industries giving to the 2008 presidential campaigns are lawyers, retirees, security and investment, commercial banking, education and technology.
Here is a great chart where you can see donations by industry from 1990-2008. The vertical axis on the left represents donations to Republicans and the horizontal axis represents donations to Democrats. You can change the time period by moving the scroll bar at the bottom at the center or pressing the play button.
For further reading:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/campaign-08-most-expensive-ever/?scp=2&sq=campaign%20spending&st=cse
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance
www.opensecrets.org
Sunday, November 2, 2008
How is Obama rasing so much?
As Leslie Wayne of the New York Times puts it, “politics this year has reached the size of an economic stimulus package.” That is in fact the truth; it is the most expensive campaign in history costing a total about $2.4 billion dollars. The 2008 presidential campaign is also the first time that the candidates have raised over a billion dollars combined, and the number is now reaching $1.5 billion. We are currently seeing this new record breaking fundraising across all campaigns, for example, 2.9 billion dollars has been spent on congressional races this season.
One of the most important aspects of this election is that the Obama campaign has been outspending the McCain campaign on television by three-and-a-half-to-one, even with spending by the R.N.C. factored in, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group. So how can a candidate who had so few connections to wealth prior to his bid raise this enormous sum of money? There are many factors contributing to his ability to raise this record-breaking sum of money. First of all, he has an email list of 9 million people, who he contacts on a daily basis. Obama has made it exceedingly easy for these contacts to contribute to the campaign anywhere at anytime and they are constantly reminded to do so. This incredibly effective strategy was one developed by Democratic National Committee head Howard Dean. Secondly, vice presidential nominee Joe Biden has numerous ties to the trial law community, many of whom are very wealthy and had not donated to the Obama campaign prior to Biden’s nudge. Then in September Obama launched an even more aggressive campaign aimed at fundraising through events. This was one of the many reasons he was able to raise $150 million in one month. That is three times more than any candidate in history has ever raised in a month. In fact, a matter of just hours, the democratic nominee raised 9 million at a Barbra Streisand concert. Notably, another important source of donors came from the connections of Warren Buffet and Caroline Kennedy, who both reached out to their contacts in hopes of raising Obama a large sum on money.
The Obama campaign has also been extremely successful in attracting small donations. In total Obama has 3.1 million donors, and his small donors have donated around half of his total funding. The campaign has been powered in large part by these small-dollar contributions, with donations of $200 or less accounting for more than 220 million dollars.
Finally, Obama has been amazingly successful since he decided against accepting public funding in June 2008. Though Obama broke his original promise to accept public funding, as a result of this decision to accept private funding, Obama is now able to raise much more money than McCain ever will be. Before, when both candidates were both planning on accepting public financing, money was not a potentially decisive factor in the election, though it is now. See how McCain feels about Obama’s fundraising tactics:
In this clip, by saying that Obama’s strategy is likely to create scandal, McCain is implicitly saying that Obama is raising his money illegally. By doing this McCain will evoke fears of Obama being dishonest in voters, and therefore earn some voters' trust and support. This is one of the ways that McCain’s is responding to Obama’s incredible talent in fundraising.
For further reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/us/politics/06donate.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/162403
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/25/AR2008102502302.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/20/AR2008102002603.html?sub=AR
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/campaign-08-most-expensive-ever/?scp=2&sq=campaign%20spending&st=cse
One of the most important aspects of this election is that the Obama campaign has been outspending the McCain campaign on television by three-and-a-half-to-one, even with spending by the R.N.C. factored in, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group. So how can a candidate who had so few connections to wealth prior to his bid raise this enormous sum of money? There are many factors contributing to his ability to raise this record-breaking sum of money. First of all, he has an email list of 9 million people, who he contacts on a daily basis. Obama has made it exceedingly easy for these contacts to contribute to the campaign anywhere at anytime and they are constantly reminded to do so. This incredibly effective strategy was one developed by Democratic National Committee head Howard Dean. Secondly, vice presidential nominee Joe Biden has numerous ties to the trial law community, many of whom are very wealthy and had not donated to the Obama campaign prior to Biden’s nudge. Then in September Obama launched an even more aggressive campaign aimed at fundraising through events. This was one of the many reasons he was able to raise $150 million in one month. That is three times more than any candidate in history has ever raised in a month. In fact, a matter of just hours, the democratic nominee raised 9 million at a Barbra Streisand concert. Notably, another important source of donors came from the connections of Warren Buffet and Caroline Kennedy, who both reached out to their contacts in hopes of raising Obama a large sum on money.
The Obama campaign has also been extremely successful in attracting small donations. In total Obama has 3.1 million donors, and his small donors have donated around half of his total funding. The campaign has been powered in large part by these small-dollar contributions, with donations of $200 or less accounting for more than 220 million dollars.
Finally, Obama has been amazingly successful since he decided against accepting public funding in June 2008. Though Obama broke his original promise to accept public funding, as a result of this decision to accept private funding, Obama is now able to raise much more money than McCain ever will be. Before, when both candidates were both planning on accepting public financing, money was not a potentially decisive factor in the election, though it is now. See how McCain feels about Obama’s fundraising tactics:
In this clip, by saying that Obama’s strategy is likely to create scandal, McCain is implicitly saying that Obama is raising his money illegally. By doing this McCain will evoke fears of Obama being dishonest in voters, and therefore earn some voters' trust and support. This is one of the ways that McCain’s is responding to Obama’s incredible talent in fundraising.
For further reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/us/politics/06donate.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/162403
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/obama-finance
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/25/AR2008102502302.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/20/AR2008102002603.html?sub=AR
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/campaign-08-most-expensive-ever/?scp=2&sq=campaign%20spending&st=cse
Which individuals are giving?
In this record breaking fundraising season, the candidates have raised nearly 1 billion dollars, including $639 million by Barack Obama and $360 million by John McCain. As of October 27, 2008 Obama had already spent $573 million compared to McCain’s $293 million.
To break these numbers down further we examine donations by region, sex and race.
Looking at all 50 states, California is the largest donor to both candidates. 20% of Obama’s contributions and 14% of McCain’s contributions come from the Golden State. Though to break this up even more, Northern California is primarily supporting Obama, with 30 million in donations, while Southern California is for McCain, with 5 million in donations. This is attributed to the trend of liberalism in the San Francisco Bay Area compared to the conservatism of Orange County. The states that come in second for donations are New York for Obama, accounting for 13% of donations, and Texas for McCain, with 10% of donations.
When looking at donations by sex, we can see that males have contributed the majority of campaign funds. For the Democratic candidate, 58% of funds are from males, and for the Republican candidate, 72% are from males. In fact, women only contributed 27% of all campaign donations. Ilana Goldman, the President of the Women’s Campaign Forum, attributes this lack of donations to women giving generously to charities instead. Though she does point out that women are donating now more than ever for many reasons, the main being that they can donate online. But when exploring whom the women are donating to, the majority of women are giving to Obama. Some of the reasons that women are more drawn to the Democratic Party include their shared belief in the role of government and economic policies as well as their emphasis on issues of compassion. Women emphasize issues such as labor, equal rights, education and healthcare, just as the Democratic Party does.
Next we take a deeper look into the race of donors. While it is extremely difficult to find donor demographics in relation to race, we can examine who the top donors are for each candidate. For Obama, out of his top ten donors, only one is identifiably non-white. This is Woodrow Myers Jr , an African American healthcare consultant from Indianapolis who has donated approximately $28,500 to the Democratic campaign this season. Of the others nine voters, only one is a woman. For McCain, none of his top 10 donors are identifiable as non-white, but four are women.
In summary, those that are giving to both the Democratic and Republican campaigns are primarily white males and the biggest donations are coming from the larger states including California, New York and Texas.
For further reading:
www.opensecrets.org
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/campaign-finance/map.html
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/women-increase.html
To break these numbers down further we examine donations by region, sex and race.
Looking at all 50 states, California is the largest donor to both candidates. 20% of Obama’s contributions and 14% of McCain’s contributions come from the Golden State. Though to break this up even more, Northern California is primarily supporting Obama, with 30 million in donations, while Southern California is for McCain, with 5 million in donations. This is attributed to the trend of liberalism in the San Francisco Bay Area compared to the conservatism of Orange County. The states that come in second for donations are New York for Obama, accounting for 13% of donations, and Texas for McCain, with 10% of donations.
When looking at donations by sex, we can see that males have contributed the majority of campaign funds. For the Democratic candidate, 58% of funds are from males, and for the Republican candidate, 72% are from males. In fact, women only contributed 27% of all campaign donations. Ilana Goldman, the President of the Women’s Campaign Forum, attributes this lack of donations to women giving generously to charities instead. Though she does point out that women are donating now more than ever for many reasons, the main being that they can donate online. But when exploring whom the women are donating to, the majority of women are giving to Obama. Some of the reasons that women are more drawn to the Democratic Party include their shared belief in the role of government and economic policies as well as their emphasis on issues of compassion. Women emphasize issues such as labor, equal rights, education and healthcare, just as the Democratic Party does.
Next we take a deeper look into the race of donors. While it is extremely difficult to find donor demographics in relation to race, we can examine who the top donors are for each candidate. For Obama, out of his top ten donors, only one is identifiably non-white. This is Woodrow Myers Jr , an African American healthcare consultant from Indianapolis who has donated approximately $28,500 to the Democratic campaign this season. Of the others nine voters, only one is a woman. For McCain, none of his top 10 donors are identifiable as non-white, but four are women.
In summary, those that are giving to both the Democratic and Republican campaigns are primarily white males and the biggest donations are coming from the larger states including California, New York and Texas.
For further reading:
www.opensecrets.org
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/campaign-finance/map.html
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/women-increase.html
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