Laurent Kretz

Half a billion in advertising

The subject of the candidates’ campaigns finance and budgets have been discussed a lot recently. I decided to dig a little deeper, checking the previous elections as well as the ratios to their success (or failures …). Here is the spreadsheet I created.

And the numbers are just skyrocketing and astonishing. To date, more than half a billion has been given to (or invested by …) various candidates, including the ones that are already out. According to CNN Elections Center, $572M have been raised by the candidates.

As a side-note, with this amount, over 1 million houses could have been provided renewable energy or 40 elementary schools built … (NationalPriorities.org).

And this number of course will increase for the “final sprint”, after both party have chosen their candidates, and those run for the November electoral college vote. I wouldn’t be surprised if the final number reaches a billion dollars.

Looking for more details…

$313M (55%)by the democrats, $258M by the republican candidates. But for the first time, a whooping $222M (or 40%, to date) of the total funds raised this far has been raised by the leading democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. $222M !! Mc Cain is much more cautious (and maybe efficient ?), since with $42M (or 7% of the $572M), he managed to lead the republican party, and will obviously be the elected candidate. Moreover, he only accounts for 13% of the total funds raised by republican candidates ($258M). Mitt Romney, his major opponent now out of the race, raised $90M (twice as much…).

How much does a delegate cost ?

That’s the funny part: comparing the campaign budgets and the number of delegates the candidates won (so far, or before quiting), you find ranges going from $41K per delegates (Mike Huckabee) to over $1.7M (John Edwards or Ron Paul). Download the spreadsheet here.

The average cost per delegate is at $582K, or $122K without Edwards and Paul high numbers. In the 2004 election, the average was of $154K per delegate, and in 2000 it was of less than $100K.

One way to look at this number is to say that to win the 2,021 delegates needed for the Democratic Convention will cost you over $200M. Prepare your checkbook.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/

It sounds obscene that a billion dollar is put on the table by individuals, organisations, associations and companies in a calendar year only for an election. As the elected president will probably have spent 25% of it, $750M will be lost on a “bet”. Obscene and indecent.

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