The One Truly Disgusting Fact from Last Night
 

I heard that Obama spent something liked $700M on his election. Republicans are saying that the next election needs to be thought of as a $1B affair.

God, we could do a lot of good in this country with $2B beyond electioneering and campaigning.

This is a system that has to change.

Just remember, that money is spent to create jobs. Advertising companies, radio, TV, printing, catering, secretarial, phone, electricity, gas, etc. These campaigns are, in essence, temporary huge national companies, reaching into literally every city and town in the USA. Whatever money they spend is put into the economy; it isn't simply vaporized.

Yes, :iagree:

And I would expect most of the jobs to be USA-based too --- which is always a good thing these days...

His campaign paid $8/hr to GMU kids to hand out flyers.

GMU = George Mason University? I assume you're kidding but I don't understand...

That is a good point, but I do think it is crazy that the candidates will have to raise that much of money to be able to compete. Seems a little much. Makes Palin's $150k on clothes seem like a drop in the bucket. Actually, a 0.00021% drop in the bucket.

Anyone think their should be a cap on the amount a candidate can spend?

There IS a cap, if the candidates participate in the Federal system. As you recall, McCain and Obama both promised to do so, but then Obama changed his mind. McCain was stuck with less money if he chose to honor his promise. That he did so was one of the factors in his defeat.

Exactly. If Obama had kept his promise, well, he would have lost. They had to outspend the Republicans by such a large margin.

However, Mr. Obama, since you are so much for a "spread the wealth" platform, why didn't you share some of that money you raised and gave it to the less fortunate party? :rofl:

Obama out performed John McCain to the tune of $1,437,719 to $267,041 in fundraising from employees at Silicon Valley companies.

Google was Obama's single largest corporate donor, racking up $485,961 in donations compared to only $20,600 for McCain. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt also personally endorsed Obama and appeared in a political broadcast for him.

Employees of Apple gave $98,023 to Obama, but only $16,950 to McCain.

McCain's largest corporate donor was Cisco systems, whose CEO John Chambers is a supporter of John McCain; employees at Cisco gave $80,676 to McCain. But even those donations were outstripped by the $149,078 that employees of Cisco gave to Obama.

Yahoo had the largest gap in its support, its workers gave $148.057 to the Obama campaign, but only $15,750 to McCain. Ebay workers also gave $46,660 to Obama and only $4,150 to McCain.

Oracle also donated a large amount to Obama, giving £143,421 to the Democratic candidate but only $36,586 to his Republican rival.
The only Silicon Valley company to give more money to McCain was Sanmina SCI which gave a paltry $250 to Obama, but not much more to McCain: $2,800.
Source


More details on his money...............

"With his extra money, Obama almost tripled McCain's advertising expenditures as Election Day drew near. He spent $21.5 million to McCain's $7.5 million from Oct. 21-28, according to a University of Wisconsin study. During the last weekend of the campaign, Obama ran 5,947 ads in seven competitive states compared with 3,358 for McCain, 77 percent more, according to the Nielsen Co. On Nov. 3, Obama ran 3,410 ads in those states; McCain ran 1,900.

Even before the final ad blitz, Obama had spent $190.2 million on media, compared with $76.7 million by McCain. The money allowed him to both fend off McCain's attacks and go on the offensive. In addition, he was able to expand his campaign to states traditionally inhospitable to Democratic presidential candidates, such as Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana.

Through Oct. 15, Obama also spent $46 million on staff salaries, more than double McCain's $20.1 million, helping to open field offices and build a get-out-the-vote operation. "

Truth is McCain did not have the machine in place to keep up with Obama if he opted out of the public financing option.

That said I believe ALL presidential elections should be financed by the public to remove special interests and keep a level playing field. Truth is we pay for it in the end anyway and then some.