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How Much Is Too Much ?

Posted by PATRICK EDABURN in Politics.
Jul 18th, 2008 | Comments

Over the last few days we have been treated to stories about how much money the two presidential campaigns have raised along with how much the RNC and DNC can add to the pot. One of the big themes over the spring and summer has been about how Senator Obama will raise millions upon millions and vastly outspend Senator McCain. So far that does not seem to be happening since the recent numbers show the two sides about even.

However as I read about each side bringing in 100 million dollars or more in a month I am prompted to ask a question that has been running through my mind for some time. How much money is too much ? At what point do you feel like you have enough to spend on an election campaign ? When do you start telling your supporters that maybe their money might be better spent helping charities in their own towns ?

I ask this question not only for the rhetorical reasons cited above but also for some very practical ones. The simple fact of the matter is that there is only so much money that a campaign can spend before they run out of places and ways to spend it. I know that both sides (especially the Obama camp) have talked about a ‘50 state campaign’ but we hear those words every four years and it never pans out.

The reality is that there are only certain states that are even theoretically in play. I don’t care if Senator Obama spends a hundred million dollars a month in Utah, he’s not going to win the state. By the same token, Senator McCain can spend the next 4 months exclusively campaigning in Rhode Island but he is not going to take the Ocean State. In the reverse, Senator Obama is certain of winning New York and it doesn’t matter how much money he spends there, he is not going to gain any more electoral votes than he already has in the bag (the same would hold true of Senator McCain in Texas).

I’m not going to say I am enough of a political expert to name all of the states that are out of reach for one side or the other but I think it would be reasonable to say that about a dozen states on each side are pretty much locked in place. So right off the top you have maybe half of the ‘50 state strategy’ that is pointless in terms of major spending and effort. Either it is a state you are sure of winning or one you have no chance in.

This brings us down to maybe 25-30 states that are or could be in play, but even within those states there are only so many people who are open to persuasion. If you are a regular reader of Daily Kos or a huge Keith Olbermann fan it is fairly unlikely that Senator McCain is going to get your vote. It doesn’t matter if he spends millions of dollars targeting ads directly at you, he’s not going to succeed.

By the same token, if you are a big reader of Red State and think Bill O’Reilly is a great guy then it is not very probable that Senator Obama is going to be able to convince you to support him. He could come over and personally wash and wax your car but you’re not gonna back him in November.

So we’ve now limited our efforts to some of the voters in some of the states and the question arises of how much money its really going to take to reach them. There are only so many TV or radio ads available for purchase between now and election day. You can only open so many offices, hire so many staffers, put up so many posters before even your own supporters get tired of it.

Businesses talk about the law of diminishing returns which discusses the fact that after a certain point efforts to convince customers to use your services tend to either fall on deaf ears or actually are counter productive. I think the same can be true of Presidential campaigns.

Even if it is not entirely true I think the campaigns could do a service to the public by cutting back on the fundraising. If they raise the same amounts of money in July and August that they did in June they will hit the general election campaign with close to half a billion dollars between the two of them. That would seem to be enough money to support their efforts through November.

Starting in September I would like to see the campaigns tell their supporters to take the money they intended to donate to them and give it to charity. This would allow both Senator Obama and Senator McCain to show that they truly care about those in need.

Any guesses as to whether either one will take me up on the idea ?

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elrod

You raise a good point about diminishing returns. The problem comes in when you saturate the airwaves and voters get tired of the commercials. Ads are helpful in places unused to ads, like Montana. But in Ohio they just turn people off.

That said, there are things you can spend money on like paid GOTV staffers. If you can hire real, committed people to go out and register voters and set up databases and get all of your voters to the polls, you can sway an election by three points.

Think about ti: Obama's key to victory is driving up turnout among black and young voters. To do that, you need a lot of committed resources to identify voters, register them, track them, and make sure they vote - early if possible. That costs money.

Neocon

So far that does not seem to be happening since the recent numbers show the two sides about even.

Huh?

Obama raised 52 million in JUNE alone. McCain raised 62.5 million in the preceeding 3 months.....he is in effect being out funded 2.5x1. Thats hardly about even.

And if you have other figures that support that conclusion please share them with us as everything I have read, Obama is a cash cow for the DNC which is going to destroy the GOP this fall.

ChrisWWW

The 50 state strategy, which Howard Dean has been using to great effect, isn't about winning now. It's about laying the groundwork for turning those states in the future.

Neocon

The 50 state strategy, which Howard Dean has been using to great effect, isn't about winning now. It's about laying the groundwork for turning those states in the future.

And there you go. Its not about winning. Its about destroying the GOP. Good for them. That is precisely why the DNC forced Obama to forgo Public Campaign financing so they could destroy the gop with a cash cow. His first act as the nominee........a Candidate who claimed he would stand up to special interests.....his first act was to cave on principal and give into the DNC's wishes........A special interest.

ChrisWWW

Neocon,
OMG!!! The Democrats are trying to win!!!! It's simply CRIMINAL!!!

superdestroyer

chris,

Demographic alone is going to make more places solidly Democratic. It should be apparent that the Democratic Party is not going to be able to turn off its partisan ways once it becomes the one dominate party.

The question everyone seems to avoid is what will the U.S. be like as a one party state. What will all of the hyperpartisans in the Democratic do once the Democratic Primary is the only real election is the U.S?

ChrisWWW

SD,
Rejoice, and then setup an even better alternative to the Dems.

Neocon

If you notice I said good for them. However missed in your enthusaism is how Obama abandoned his principals. Those principals upon which he staked his reputation as being above politics.

The first thing he did? Climb aboard the political bandwagon. As far as winning. Yep the democrats have learned a lesson.....They despised, hated. berated and abhorred the GOP strategy of winning at all costs and vowed that it was criminally insane how the GOP practiced politics.

Now today they are jumping up and down and having orgasms over the power of winning at all costs gives them. There certainly is no shortage of hypocrits in the democratic party that is for sure.

ChrisWWW

Neocon,
When the Dems start using wars they start as election year "products," then give me a call. When they start using the DoJ to wrongly imprison political opponents, then give me a call. When they start rolling out terror threats to manipulate the news cycles, then give me a call. When they start putting the burning twin towers on campaign billboards, then give me a call.

Neocon

Wars? They needed the war to win back congress and the White House. What are you talking about. The GOP gave you the government back on a silver platter.

Chris your talking points are old and tired. Its already been proven that the left uses fear to get elected just as the right does. They say McCain will be a continuation of Bush.. 100 years? Mr. McCain you cannot have my child......blah, blah, blah. Its not about using fear. Its about using fear against your opponent. Were no safer. Were less safer. Bin Laden is still out there. Be afraid. Were heading for depression. More years of GOP rule and the country will collapse. etc. etc..etc.

ChrisWWW

Old and tired? The billboard thing was in the news yesterday!

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/15/billboard-d...

That's on a different playing field than pointing out John McCain's policy will keep our troops in harms way for decades more. That Bush & Musharraf appeased Al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan's borders. That the banking collapse is being blamed on a dearth of regulation in the wake of Republican deregulation laws.

Neocon

Fear is fear. One mans fear is another mans concern.

DLS

I just hope the Dems, who will do very well in other elections besides the Presidential election, don't succumb to likely arrogance and conceit and unreal ambitions, and if they rule the House and the Senate with 60+ seats, don't try to lunge leftward and make quality Americans revile them as well as recoil. If this happens, a harsher consequence than the 1994 elections is fully deserved. Another 1994 may be unlikely, though, because since then the GOP has been acting much like the Democrats, happy with too much power and money and control centered in Washington.

I just hope the Dems don't go dangerously too far leftward. (Despite dishonest claims to the contrary, there's nothing like that on the right with Republicans.)

DLS

"The 50 state strategy, which Howard Dean has been using to great effect, isn't about winning now. It's about laying the groundwork for turning those states in the future."

Wasn't Howard Dean against this before, even when he was attacked by the left fringe for discussing the need for outreach? It's Obama's own campaign this year that has reached out to those other states. And yes, there is a need for the Dems to scrap their up-to-1960s-and-1970s stupidity and failure and become modern. The US's population continues to relocate largely south and west, in the places with modern economic vitality and growing power. (Wise planning through 2100 would mean relocating the federal capital to Oklahoma City, as I've writtten before, which is also where the population center of the USA is headed by that time.) The Dems truly need to be new Dems and go beyond the superficiality (and frequent phoniness) of Clinton and Gore post-1994 with their "New Democrats" and "Third Way" "reinventing government" and truly be sensible and up to date. There are major metro areas out there displacing the metros that were important when people were children but which matter little now -- that includes big Detroit, where I currently am; the domestic auto industry that is successful is in places like Nashville! -- and the new ones are the ones that matter -- not just Seattle and Portland (Oregon, not Maine; ahem) but Phoenix, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Nashville, and so on. That is the future of our country, they are large metro areas that support liberal politics, and that's where the Dems should be basing their new political and enonomic models and learning from these places as opposed to Rust Belt junk bucket government-fiefdom-and-parasitism of the past.

DLS

"Fear is fear."

Campaign ad: Obama and Usama bin Laden on same screen. Low-level operative in McCain's campaign accepts blame and resigns. McCain decries the ad (as opposed to Obama's tactic of saying it was a "mistake").

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