COMMENTARY | "What kind of man would mislead, distort and deceive just to win an election?" Reuters reported a Florida ad in support of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich as saying. "That man would be Mitt Romney."
In truth, I think the act of misleading, distorting and deceiving is pretty much standard fare for elections. Such behaviors must be lucrative though, considering how much money the candidates have raised, at least in part to purchase ads and attend events. Leading the pack in campaign fundraising is the current president, Barack Obama.
According to the campaign funding information website, Open Secrets, as of the third quarter of 2011, $86 million was raised for Obama's 2012 election campaign. Let's put that in perspective. Given the $11,536 per-pupil annual expenditures of the Chicago Public School system as of the most recent year reported, 2007-08, the money invested in the reelection campaign of the president through the third quarter of 2011 could have been spent educating 7,455 children for a year.
Mitt Romney's campaign raised $32 million through the third quarter of 2011. According to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of May 2010, the average annual salary of a worker in Massachusetts is $53,700. In other words, Romney's campaign contributions through three-quarters of 2011 could pay a year's worth of average salaries for about 596 people in Massachusetts.
How about Newt Gingrich's fundraising through the first three quarters of 2011? According to Open Secrets, he raised $3 million. During Christmas, the Georgia division of the Salvation Army raised $3.6 million in Red Kettle contributions. The money will reportedly be used throughout the year to help residents via the organization's 26 Salvation Army Corps Community Centers and 15 service centers throughout the state. In 2011, Georgia's Salvation Army division served over 666,656 meals and provided 67,756 people with job training skills. Medical, energy and housing assistance was provided for 155,379 people.
Through three quarters of 2011, Ron Paul's campaign raised $13 million. That's a little over $1 million less than the amount that is planned by the state health department for grants to organizations offering family planning services in Texas this year.
Finishing up top five candidates is Rick Santorum, who raised about $1 million in the first three quarters of 2011. That's about the same amount that the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave to Pennsylvania in 2010 to reimburse the state, local governments and nonprofit organizations for costs incurred during the February 5-11, 2010 snowstorms. The snowstorms resulted in disaster declarations for 26 counties in the state.
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