Barack Obama announced this week that his campaign raised $150 million in September. Imagine the money rolling in: $5 million a day; $208,000 an hour; $3,470 a minute; $58 every second of the day. And keep in mind the context: Obama opted out of the public funding system, which would have given him $85 million after his convention and limited him to spending that much for all of September and October. By contrast, McCain opted into the system, and cannot raise (with some exceptions) any money in the final eight weeks of the election. The imbalance in funds begs an important question: If Obama wins, could we say he "bought" the election?
The gut reaction to this might very well be disgust. McCain has been forced to watch the Illinois Senator pummel him on the airwaves and outspend him even in traditionally Republican states. McCain has even pulled his ads from several states to consolidate his efforts in key battlegrounds. According to a recent report from the Wisconsin Advertising Project, in the final week of September Obama outspent McCain on television advertising by a significant margin ($17.5 million to $10.8 million). Moreover, Obama will address the nation in a 30-minute "ad" next week, an expenditure that could cost $6 million. For many, such financial disparities are troublesome. Both candidates should presumably get equal access to voters. This was, after all, the original intent of the public funding provisions.
We can establish two important rebuttals, however. The first is an evaluation of each campaign's strategic decisions. Obama announced his plan to opt out of public funding in June, before McCain made his decision. This allowed McCain at least the opportunity to opt out as a tactical response. He could have said: "Because my opponent did this, I will as well. I don't want to, but in order to compete, I must have access to comparable resources." As a champion of campaign finance reform, however, McCain did not do this?a choice that reflects his convictions perhaps.
Should you worry, however, that McCain is being punished for sticking to his beliefs, keep in mind McCain's defense of his strikingly negative attacks on Obama's character. When Obama chose not to debate McCain in multiple town hall meetings throughout the summer, McCain claimed that this set the table for a negative (and traditional) election campaign. If McCain can avoid responsibility for mud-slinging (a style of campaigning that he has decried for years) on the basis of Obama's decisions, he could have surly taken the same tack in opting out of public funding.
The second rebuttal to Obama's astronomical fund-raising is a reality check. Both candidates ultimately have roughly comparable resources if you factor in the Democratic and Republican Party fund-raising. For example, Obama currently has about $134 million in the bank, and the Democratic National Committee has about $27 million. McCain has about $47 million left from the public financing grant, while the Republican National Committee has almost $78 million. McCain's primary election account (which can be distributed to state Republican parties for the general election) additionally has nearly $30 million. This means that both camps are about even in terms of available funds, as of October 1.
Of course, if Obama raises the same amount in October as he did in September he could ultimately outspend McCain by a significant margin. But keep in mind: Both men have more than enough to run a competitive contest. There are only so many TV ads that one can buy in the final few weeks of the election, and every campaign dollar spent in the extreme suffers from the law of diminishing marginal returns.
There is an important normative challenge in all of this as well. How, exactly, do we want to fund presidential elections? The current system is now essentially dead?no serious presidential candidate in 2012 will opt into the system as it exists.
So what next? If we fix the system and expand the grant, it would have to be doubled or tripled (to about $200 or $250 million per candidate) for the nominees to take it seriously. That would meet with some skepticism from those who want to limit money's influence.
If we make the increase too small, however, this will foster outside groups (many of whom can raise unlimited amounts in contributions) to ramp up their participation to help the candidates (as in 2004 when MoveOn.org and the Swift Boat Veterans spent tens of millions on TV ads).
The other alternative is to look to Obama's success and encourage it. The next Republican nominee will have access to this same cache of cash. Of course, such a recommendation is premised on the notion that we need not worry about the huge cost of campaigns. Shouldn't we be trying to limit the influence of money in elections? Perhaps, but I'm not so worried. Contribution limits keep huge checks out of candidate and party coffers, meaning there are no wealthy benefactors pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Fixing the money in politics question is far more complicated than a simple "less money is good" mantra. If we allow ourselves to see money as a form of free expression, for example, we can more easily accept Obama's fund-raising prowess to be less a reflection of the "problem" of money in politics and more a sign of the "vibrancy" of American elections.
Michael Franz is an assistant professor in the government department.