*When is enough, enough? Part 1

Is enough ever enough? Apparently not for President-elect to be Barack Obama, officially he will not be President-elect despite his podium decor, until the electoral college votes on December 15 but that's just a technicality. What is not a technicality is the tremendous amount of money Obama has raised and continues to raise for his once and one assumes future run for president.

Today there are more stories about the President-elect and his penchant for fund raising. The Politico had two posted in just few hours time. The first, Obama, the billion-dollar man gives a pretty general portrayal of the Obama fundraising machine and its accomplishments to date.

That will bring the grand total for his campaign to more than $750 million — more than the combined sum raised by President George W. Bush and his Democratic rival, John F. Kerry, in the record-setting 2004 campaign and nearly as much as the total raised by all the presidential contenders then.

The second, Obama uses security team to raise cash explains that the seemingly never ending quest goes on.

The move is similar to one Obama made last week, when he used his economic policy announcements to hit up donors. Taken together, the e-mails show Obama has plans to continue using his powerful e-mail list as a fundraising tool, at least in the near term.

No one doubts that "money is the life blood of politics" but when it come to Barak Obama it has become a veritable perpetual fountain. As one who came of age during the Watergate era this seemingly over the top preoccupation with fund raising is disconcerting. Obviously had any candidate other than Barack Obama opted out of public financing, the outcry would have been relentless, but for Obama there has been very little criticism from the media and even less scrutiny.

There was for example the entire issue of credit card accountability which was all but ignored by the press leading up to the election. The Washington Post did a small article on it just days before the election, but glossed over some of the most egregious examples and failed to adequately explain the possible skirting of campaign finance laws. Here is how the news organization that brought down a president characterized it.

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

The article fails to explain how the Obama campaign knowingly turned off normal internet credit card security features in order to receive vast amounts of untraceable and unreported small contributions. Despite some very detailed and exhaustive research done on it, the story hardly seemed worth mentioning.

To add insult to chutzpa, by not taking the public financing that was instituted to avoid shenanigans, he will avoid the official scrutiny the system was designed to catch. From Politico

The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul.

Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend.

Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because the sheer volume of cash he raised and spent minimizes the significance of his errors. Another factor: The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president.

During the campaign much was made of Obama's ability to attract so much money from small donors which turned out to be not exactly accurate, having raised percentage wise only slightly more than previous candidates. However despite the percentages the money is staggering.

According to the most recent available official figures which are bound to go up since they only go through the end of October, Obama had raised $639 million and spent $573 million towards being elected president. To put that in perspective McCain in the same time period had raised $360 million and spent $293 million. Some of this difference was the result of Obama's protracted primary as compared to McCain's but the overall impact of this money infusion payed handsomely in the general election.

Looking at the state by state comparisons of money spent it is obvious that Obama was able to pour money into key battleground states, far beyond the resources of McCain. Some Examples

In Florida Barack Obama spent a total of $36.7 million to McCain's $8.3 million a staggering $24.4 million dollar advantage or as a per vote basis Obama spent $8.86 for every vote he received while McCain spent $2.11 for each of his votes. That number is even more staggering when you consider that includes just almost 205,000 more votes for Obama out of over 8 million cast.

In North Carolina Obama outspent McCain $10.7 to $3.5 million or $5.04 to $1.66 for every vote they each received, basically a 3 to 1 margin to win a state by fewer than 14,000 votes or less than 1% of the votes cast.

In Virginia Obama outspent McCain $23.8 to $7.5 million or $12.15 to $4.35 per vote received.

In Ohio Obama outspent McCain $21.4 to $14.5 million or $7.90 to $5.80 per vote received.

The overwhelming money advantage allowed Obama to go after traditionally Republican states and compete. Take Indiana which borders his home state and where Obama was expected to have a very outside chance. Obama outspent McCain $11,800,000 to $428,895 or $8.63 to $0.32 for every vote received. This 25 to 1 advantage in spending helped Obama eke out a win by fewer than 26,000 votes or less than 1% of votes cast. With that large of an advantage in cash, an advantage that McCain had no chance of matching even if his campaign had been up to the challenge an outside chance at victory became a reality for Obama.

This is not to say that Obama would not have won with everything else this election cycle flowing his way, but it sure did not hurt. One is left to wonder though what would have happened had our next President had not broken his promise and taken public financing.

At least the media mentioned it.

UPDATE;
CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY JUST CAME OUT WITH AN ARTICLE WITH SOME UPDATED NUMBERS

Excerpt

It is in their spending rates, however, that the extent of the Obama campaign’s advantage over McCain is most dramatic.

Obama spent a total of $740 million, including $252 million since Oct. 1. McCain, who was limited to $84 million in spending after the Republican convention due to his participation in the public financing scheme, spent less than half that — $293 million total.

McCain was vastly outspent in the final two and a half weeks of the campaign, reporting $26.5 million in disbursements to Obama’s $146.6 million.

At a conference on election law held in Washington D.C. on Thursday, campaign finance expert and McCain general counsel Trevor Potter reflected on the moment when the enormity sunk in about what the Republican campaign was up against.

Potter called the Obama campaign’s 30-minute broadcast “infomercial” in the final week “a brilliant move,” adding, “I think it was at that moment when our . . . outside finance people and others realized they were dealing with a different league here.”