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Posted on 11/05/2008 11:04:20 AM PST by khnyny
The fundraising juggernaut unleashed by Barack Obama has permanently changed the rules for future U.S. presidential campaigns, experts say.
Not only has the cost of becoming president taken a quantum leap, the Obama campaign has redefined how candidates raise money - and has left America's campaign public financing system a smouldering ruin in the process.
"The unbelievable outspending that the Obama campaign has been able to do has just tilted the playing field enormously," says Josh Israel, director of the Buying of the President project at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C.
The money raised and spent by Obama and his Republican rival, John McCain, boggles the Canadian mind. But even to Americans, the numbers are astonishing.
"This is the first time in U.S. history we're seeing more than $1 billion being spent by the major party candidates to buy the White House," says Craig Holman, a campaign finance lobbyist at Public Citizen, a non-profit public interest organization.
In 2004, George W. Bush and John Kerry, the Democratic party nominee, raised $696 million between them. In this campaign, Obama - who was at nearly $650 million and counting in late October - seems likely to surpass that by himself.
He did it in part, by getting money from millions of small donors. More than three million people have donated to his campaign, twice as many as any presidential candidate has received money from in the past.
Nearly half the money has come from people giving less than $200. But he also has attracted record donations from higher rollers.
As of mid-October, Obama had raised $215 million from donors giving $1,000 or more. By comparison, in 2004 Bush collected $147 million from people who donated $1,000 or more.
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
That meant foregoing $84 million in public money. But it also freed Obama from any limits on his campaign spending. He quickly took advantage, raising a staggering $151 million in September alone.
But ..
But...
Campaign Finance Reform was going to make the process better and cleaner.
I’m thinking Soros and company bought a lot of pre-paid credit cards and their useful idiots pumped them into the web site.
yup... just shows the model we should use in 2010 and 2012
Yeah..that’s the part that sticks in my craw...a dressed up socialist bought the presidency. And when we do likewise in 2012? We’re gonna be pilloried because “we’re not playing fair.”
I’m betting that between a quarter and a third of Obama’s donations were illegal. But who is going to investigate?
In 193 A.D. Marcus Didius Severus Julianus bought the Roman Empire for 25,000 sesterces per praetorian. He “ruled” for 66 days.
I guess the republicans need to find some filthy rich radical billionaire as the source, and a truckload of credit and debit cards for distribution, using aliases.
Our electoral system....2008.
Thanks McCain Fiengold!
We need to fight and a big part of that is simple: We need to dig deeper than ever before into our wallets. Obama is going to take it all anyway. Might as well use every dime to fight him.
If America has been bought it’s only because we put it up for sale.
The media used to moan and groan about how wasteful and dangerous it was to have such expensive elections, but now that Zero did it, it’s OK.
John McCain helped make the system which hobbled his own campaign and led to his defeat. He was warned that the campaign finance law was bad for Republicans, but he went ahead anyway.
chickens do come home to roost....
Don’t forget all his middle eastern contributions.
One thing to consider is all the money being spent at liberal media outlets.
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In the future, what candidate would be stupid enough to take Public Financing?
“...Nearly half the money has come from people giving less than $200...”
Untraceable money, most from the Middle East and Muslim countries in Africa. Processed through UBS accounts on the island of Madeira (information courtesy of Polaric, one of the techs who exposed Obama’s COLB as a forged document).
Obama is corrupt and a criminal. We have much to fear with him in the White House.
I’m thinking that a very small portion of the hundreds of billion of dollars USA has given it’s enemies for oil, came back into the Obama campaign via thousand of small donations and other means; duh foreign influnce.
What is so complicated about what is going wrong in USA? Many hundres of billion dollars is being used to buy everything around us including our government.
Public financing is now dead, and the template for future financing has been established by the 0bama campaign.
He has dirtied the waters with every political campaign he has waged and establish new ways to sully elections.
Obama had Rahm Emmanuel help with the “fund raising”. Apparently 0’s first appointment will be his new Chief of Staff - Rahm Emmanuel.
Not a good sign.
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