Given the criticism Senator Kerry received for not spending all of the money in his 2004 kitty, it will be interesting to see how much cash on hand Obama for America reports at the end of this month.
According to ABC News, as of 4 November Obama had raised $659.1 million and spent $593.1 million: a $66 million differential. On 14 November the campaign announced a one-month bonus for all staff members, which probably cost it about $3 million.
Meanwhile, our putative Secretary of State is believed still to be about $21 million in debt: $13 million in personal loans the Daily News, at least, says she will never get back, and $8 million in campaign debts.
Maybe some of you have more updated or accurate information and-or speculations. As to criticism, well, Obama won, which makes all the difference: I doubt anyone will say he spent too little, except perhaps some Democrats in Minnesota and Georgia. I am sure there are excellent arguements, however, for what he should do with any money he has going forward.
karenc says
Obama opted out of public financing in BOTH the primaries and general election. Kerry only in the primary – after Dean did.
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p>As soon as the convention ended, Kerry was not allowed to spend primary money. Before the convention he gave huge amounts of it to the DNC and other Democratic organizations, but there was some left that exceeded the claims against it. BUT IT COULD NOT have legally been used in the general election.
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p>Kerry did use all the general election money.
peabody says
There are big differences between the Bush-Kerry competition and the Obama-McCain one.
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p>Firstly, four more years of George W. Bush’s arrogance and illogical policies on the war and national security.
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p>Secondly, the economy.
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p>Thirdly and so on, so many issues.
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p>The debt Hillary accumulated should be retired. The primary contest assisted in seasoning the ultimate president. Also, it appears Hillary will become an important part of Barack Obama’s national security and foreign policy team.
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p>Obama won with a mandate. Of course, we want Minnesota and Georgia too. For Minnesota, the volunteers need to work the recount. In Georgia, there is still time to campaign and phone bank.
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p>Let’s get Jim Martin in there and retire Saxby Chambliss!
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p>Hand ringing serves not much of a purpose now. Yes, learn from history. But onward and upward!
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cos says
I’d like to see him use the money to keep an active campaign organization going, continuing to organize and help pass the agenda he campaigned on as well as preparing for future elections.
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p>(disclosure: I work for Blue State Digital which is paid by the Obama campaign for Internet infrastructure and strategy – though I’m pretty sure I’d have had this opinion regardless of that)
joes says
in soliciting funds, so I expect the plan is to stay the course with a “campaign” called citizenship.
marcus-graly says
I got this email a week and a half ago:
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p>Perhaps he is legally prohibited from using campaign cash or just wanted to hit up his donors one more time, but I think it’s quite possible that they’re out of money (or running low at any rate).
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p>Personally, I think he should hit up those secretive cooperate types, at the very least, those maxed out bundler types, since presumably they can contribute well beyond the $2300 limit.
cos says
I doubt this appeal for money has anything at all to do with the campaign’s financial situation, and I doubt it tells us anything about the campaign’s financial situation. It wouldn’t make any sense to allow campaign contributions to fund the presidential transition. I haven’t consulted a lawyer, but I’d really be shocked if it were possible to us campaign money for this.
ron-newman says
and I wonder if Bush also had such a fundraising campaign in 2000.
laurel says
attached to the announcement of the nat’l security team. enough is never enough, i guess. i’m still pissed at obama-biden for fundraising in california a few weeks before the election, when NO on Prop 8 was trying like crazy to keep up with the haters (mormons, mostly). i will never forget the giant sucking sound associatied with biden’s fundraising visit.
why would anyone still be donating to the campaign fund?
sabutai says
It was clear going into Election Day 2004 that it was going to be knife’s edge; not so in 2008.
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p>Kerry also was being outspent, and needed every dollar to match the Chimp’s advantage in a very close election. On the other hand, Obama was burying McCain in spending and had a very healthy lead with which to do it.
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p>In short, I think Obama had money left over because he had more money than he knew what to do with; Kerry had money left over because he didn’t know what to do with the money he had.
karenc says
use primary money – Kerry spoke of states they had to abandon due to lack of money and he spoke of having to stay nearly dark in August to conserve money because he had to make the same money last 13 weeks that Bush had for 8 weeks.
sabutai says
Your rationale is different than Kerry’s…that he was reserving the cash for legal challenges a la 2000. Which is it?
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p>Of course Kerry could have used that primary money to build up state operations in the swing states, but he chose to sit on it. We’ll never really know why. Yes Kerry was in a spot in terms of making his $75million in post-convention matching funds last longer than did Bush; hence the end-of-calendar scheduling in 2008. That still doesn’t explain his inability to sink that $14 million into infrastructure in Florida and Ohio — it was obvious by summer 2004 that Ohio was going to be the key state.
karenc says
and to the state parties from his primary money. I hadn’t heard Kerry say that the primary money was being retained for legal challenges – though it would make sense to keep some money for that. There was one comment that they had to retain money to pay bills that hadn’t yet been received. My point is that he could not use it directly in his general election campaign.
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p>My question is what did the DNC do from 2000 to 2004? It was their job, not the candidate’s to deal with creating healthy state parties. It is way too late to start building up the state party in summer 2004. Howard Dean found that they were a mess when he took over and he worked hard to fix them over the last 4 years. Money helps, but having experienced local people in place is more important.