The 2008 U.S. presidential is estimated to cost nearly 2.4 billion dollars,
making it the most expensive bid for the White House in history. But despite
all the cash flow, very few Americans open their wallets to support the
candidates.


WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES REUTERS -
Here is a U.S. election factoid that may cause your heart to skip
a beat or two: it costs a combined $1.2 billion dollars to run the
governments of seven Pacific Island nations -- Kiribati, the Solomon Islands,
Vanuatu, Tonga, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Samoa -- but twice that
amount, $2.4 billion, to elect a U.S. President.
The road to the White House has never been an inexpensive ride, but
this year the cost of getting to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has reached a level
unanticipated even a decade ago. The Center for Responsive Politics, a
watchdog group which keeps an eye on such things, estimates the final tally
spent by John McCain and Barack Obama and their associated special interest
groups will approach a quarter trillion dollars.
Much of the money is spent on television campaign advertisements. To
the delight of the sales people at small market television stations across the
U.S., the Obama and McCain campaigns spend an average of $1.4 million each day
in television advertisments.
The Obama campaign is, by far, the most profligate spendthrift. Obama
chose not to accept supplemental election funding from the federal government
-- freeing the campaign of those nettlesome federal spending regulations and
allowing Obama to make private appeals for funds.
As if to flex its muscle, the Obama campaign paid three U.S. networks
approximately $1 million each for simultaneous 30-minute slots during the
evening prime-time viewing period.
"The Obama campaign in particular has had incredible success. To
give some perspective, Obama raised in just one month $150 million -- that's
about half of what John Kerry raised in the last election throughout his
entire campaign," said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director for the
Center for Responsive Politics. "There's really no comparison between
this cycle's spending, and funds dedicated to previous presidential elections.
We're on a different plane entirely," she said.
John McCain's campaign accepted $84 in public funding. Including funds
accumulated from individual and special interest contributions, the McCain had
$132 million in its coffers during October.
Corporate donations, especially those from Wall Street firms, fund much
of the election. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Citigroup donate
hundreds of thousands of dollars to each candidate. Merrill Lynch, for its
part, donated nearly $350 thousand dollars to the McCain campaign alone.
Both campaigns seek individual donations through direct mailings and on
their campaign websites and social networking websites. But compared with the
largesse of corporate donations, the hundreds of thousands of individual
donations amount to pocket change.
"The average American is not giving campaign contributions. Less
than one half of one percent of Americans are giving contributions of a size
that we can examine, over 200 dollars. Maybe between five and 10 percent of
Americans, maximum, give any kind of political contributions of any
kind," Krumholz said.
Among Americans, outlandish campaign spending is often cited in
opinion polls as the reason why many have become unenchanted with politics in
the U.S.
"Campaign spending is really out of control. The fact (is) that
we are in the middle of a recession, people are really suffering, and they're
just going to throw thousands and millions of dollars. Nobody seems to be
focusing on the issues at hand. They just want fight amongst each other and
it's just a waste of money," said Chelsea Pritchard, a passerby in Los
Angeles whose remarks were not atypical.
Some, however, see the the high-ticket price of the campaign as the
cost of doing business.
"You have to spend that much money to do it. There's no way you
can capture that much media and national attention with any less money than
that. You just can't," said Gina Vadnais, a Los Angeles resident.
Hollywood, as ever, has been opening its wallet in this election
campaign, especially for Obama and other Democratic candidate
In September, Obama collected $9 million at a fundraiser hosted by
Barbra Streisand.
But even in Hollywood, election spending can seem excessive for
some.
"I think if you're running for a campaign, you have to do what you
feel morally is right, and hopefully you can sleep with yourself at night.
But let's not pretend like we're dealing with something that's angelic.
Politics is not that. And money has always been a part of that," said
actress Charlize Theron.