The Campaign For President: Is It Worth The Cost?
It's a dual feeling of amazement (geek: wow!) and puzzlement (what's in there that's so important?).
Added:
The 2004 presidential campaign between Bush & Kerry cost more than $2 billion ($1.14 billion for Bush and his supporters; $1.08 billion for Kerry and his supporters). For 2008, both parties are running campaigns for a candidate (unlike in 2004) . Total spending to select a nominee and then have someone elected will probably exceed $4 billion. Voters in 2004: 118 million.1
About's Guide to Liberal Politics, Deborah White, wonders if this is "really something glorious to crow about."
I say it's not.
But first, a word (or two) about those numbers.
We pay the President of the United States $400,000 a year (it doubled in 2001). That sounds like a lot of money -- but relative to the cost of a campaign, it's peanuts. Think about it: candidates have more than $100,000 in their war chests right now. Experts are forecasting a billion dollar campaign.
To raise a billion dollars in one year means generating almost $275,000 each-and-every day. Or $11,460 per hour. This is insane.
There's another way to look at today's $400,000 salary for President, and that's to compare it to Fortune 100 CEO pay. It looks pretty shabby -- regardless of how you feel about the relative merits of CEO pay.
And there's yet another measure where it looks very shabby. That's when you take historical presidential salary data and convert it to 2005 dollars. Then we learn that William Howard Taft (1909) raked in the equivalent of $1.6 million. Richard Millhouse Nixon (1969), $1.1 million.
Was there a storm of controversy at the time of the salary increase in 1909 and 1969? I don't know. I'm pretty sure there'd be a storm of controversy today, should Congress decide to raise the salary of the Presidency to more than a million dollars.
So why isn't there a storm of controversy over the high price of political campaigns in general and the presidential campaign in particular?
Rolling Stone contends that a lot of the money is wasted on consultants (they point fingers at Democrats here) and expensive television ads:
The party's campaign strategists operate under contracts that would make Halliburton blush. While their GOP counterparts work for a flat fee on presidential campaigns, Democratic media consultants profit on commission, pocketing as much as ten percent of every dollar spent on TV ads. It's a business model that creates "an inherent conflict of interest," concedes Anita Dunn, who served as a strategist for Bill Bradley in 2000. The more the candidate spends on TV advertising, the more the consultant cashes in. And that compensation is hidden from public scrutiny: Federal campaign reports reveal only what a campaign spends on ads, not how much the consultants skim off the top.
But more and more of us are tuning out -- literally (doing something else, probably on the Internet) or figuratively (zapping through those commericals with Tivo or Replay) or practically (we don't show up to vote).
What if all that energy, effort and money was put to something productive? You know, like education (volunteer! donate!) or public television (volunteer! donate!) or youth groups (volunteer! donate!). Or <gasp!> the candidates might, instead, spend their energy doing what they were elected to do: govern.
Previous attempts to limit campaign donations have been rejected by the courts as free speech infringement. But Congress (and the states) could change the rules by fiat (ie, by law). We could have a system more akin to Britain's parlimentary elections if we desired.
That is, we could limit campaign activity to x-weeks (it's six in Britain) before an election. We could stop being enablers to the two big parties: we subsidize their primaries and, this year, too many state legislatures have spent too many legislative hours scheming to be first in the primary/caucus line-up.
We could do it, if we put our (collective) minds to it.
Couldn't we?
1 Jamieson, K.H., ed. Electing the President 2004: The Insiders' View. University of Pennsylvania Press (2006).
Comments
We spend a pittance on our elections compared to just about any other “hobby” or recreation. The expenditures are a necessary part of the education process so people will learn both sides of each candidate. To bemoan this reality and try to legislate these efforts out of existance are ignoring that such an effort would be futile, make criminals out of people for doing nothing more than sharing information with their friends, shut down radio talk shows because of threatened criminal prosecution and kill off the First Amendment even more than McCain-Feingold did.
Geesh. And God help us if our legislators do any more legislating. A better idea would be to allow any third of the Congress to be able to veto any legislation, so NOTHING gets done. Then ordinary people could do work and keep their money, and those who don’t work would have to do honest begging, instead of just filling out the paperwork.
Yes fine – but letter try to explain what goes on in the free world.
How do other countries in the world limit the amount of election funds available to politicians. . . .
I think they are cutting too many programs that are really needed. I have always wondered why they needed so much money to elect a president when people out in the world are having a hard time
living on Social Security and trying to pay deductibles and medicine and their rent and bills. This abuse of money is going to really cost this nation some real heartache one of these days. The reason people are homeless is that some people are so greedy and want to rob the poor and charge high rent for places to live and then they call America the home of the brave and the land of the free! The American Dream, well, whose dream are they talking about? Every program has so many complications for applying that a person would have to be a rocket scientist to understand and fill them out! What about people who do not even have a way to print out all of the paperwork needed to apply for help! You have to be a millionaire to apply for any kind of help and then these people are spending this kind of money to be President and they don’t have very much say after they get elected. It is ridiculous!
Hi, Warren:
How do you measure “education”? I ask because research from the last presidential election showed that people supporting President Bush were more likely to misunderstand his positions on 10 key issues than people who were supporting Kerry.
Also, the number of Americans who register to vote and then actually do vote has been on a steady decline. Why do we feel disenfranchised? Could it be the era of 15 second sound bites & attack ads?
Please show me what you mean by “the education process” and how these billions will contribute to it.
So Albi … why not start talking about how elections are funded and how long the campaign cycle is where you live?
What’s everyone think of simply putting a cap on how much money you’re allowed to have, or making elections strictly public? There’s a couple alternatives. I think it could help the challengers versus the incmubents. However, i don’t know if we’ll ever see that. I think all of the negative campaigning exhausts me… I saw the Rick Santorum campaigning, and Kerry Healey campaigning… they could teach a “101 negative campaigning class”. I think that kind of stuff is really starting to backfire. I also think that all these states moving up their primaries to get a piece of the action needs to be seriously evaluated because its “feeding the monster”. Why should Nevada and Maryland get to go before more decisive states such as Pennsylvania and Florida (just an example)? If anyone could provide some feed back or justification, Id appreciate it.
Jesse
No more subsidizing at current levels……severe limitations must be put in place ……simply said, no one candidate can have more money than another.
I just re-read my writing and realize that I was very unclear. Deborah was talking about the campaign for the NOMINATION.
The Presidential Campaign between Bush & Kerry in 2004 cost more than $2 billion.
Add to that the fact that both parties are running campaigns for a candidate — and total spending to first get a nominee and then have someone elected will probably exceed $4 billion.
If I were candidates… id move to the first 10 primary states and live there. Of course that strategy is common among some, but also its increasingly difficult and necessary to raise ridiculously excessive amounts of dollars because now, numerous states are interested in moving their primaries way up. I think eventually you’ll see an “electoral” primary type criteria where the primary candidates run national campaigns fighting it out for the nomination. This is very scary because both parties by doing this will waste so much money and not have as much ammo left for the real presidential campaign. I think the campaigns should either have an over cap of how much you are allowed to raise, or the campaigns should be public. Also, the “national” primary battle should be limited to include Iowa and New Hampshire, and then states should be selected to rotate (picking 1 from each region) through the election cycles… as to who can have the early primary. This is an excellent and fair national idea. its fair to the other states and its fair to the candidates/ parties.
I have a question for my government homework, but I dont know why it does. The question is Why do campaigns cost so much money? If some one could help me that would be great.
Hi, Ashley:
In a word: TV, ads that is.
Kathy
It should infuriate the average American citizen that millions of dollars have been raised by the 2008 candidates for the Democratic nomination (not even the Presidency) in a matter of days, while our country is facing a devastating economic recession! And be sure, no one candidate is ‘above the fray’ in this massive money flaunt– Both Clinton and Obama are taking money from PACs– and certainly each of them is accepting some form of “soft money” (so much for recent campaign finance reforms signed into law in 2002), while the outrageous moolah spent on tv ads, mailings, rallies, and spin doctors is revolting given our country’s fiscal mess, perhaps what is even more upsetting is the way in which our media blatantly controls the political agenda (or should I say, the “ratings game,” as far as their producers are concerned)– Ahh, but then there’s the sickening mess surrounding the Democratic National Party: Florida and Michigan’s votes do not count; superdelegates, set up after the 1968 DNC goof up to settle close races, are now being pressured to vote a certain way; and caucuses that deny shift workers and the homebound elderly and disabled are still being used by numerous states to decide (undemocratically) which candidate wins the state! Wait, there’s more voter fraud out there– we continue to use the antiquated Electoral College!! Of all the monumental amendments we have added to our great Constitution (like prohibition-), American citizens have failed to demand the one that will allow all of our votes to Really Count–It should scare today’s voters that our founders’ (Alexander Hamilton, for one) number one reason for disallowing all voters to count was that the masses could not be trusted– well, I think we have moved beyond that sort of elitist, status quo (only white property owners can vote) mentality– So, yes there is definite need for major reform of the funding for campaigns, the antiquated and confusing primary system (especially for the Democratic Party), the media’s power to hoodwink voters with sound bites and the “if it bleeds, it reads” ratings based attitude of showing only one part of a campaign, and the archaic don’t trust the masses (who, uh, sort of make the entire idea of a real democracy work?!) to vote for themselves! Be the watchdog America– we can’t trust the mass media or the politicians (remember, most of them are former high paid DEFENSE ATTORNEYS) to reform their expenditures and make the voting system fair for the little guy (and gal)– Hold them accountable– Our votes DO count, if we stand up as a majority and demand it! The right to vote was paid for, is paid for, with something worth far more than the millions these guys are wasting!!