Kim Schmitz
Features Editor
In an ideal democracy, money would not be a significant contributing factor in the outcome of an election. Political fundraising has a negative stigma – some say that politicians who try to raise money are playing dirty. But it’s impossible to deny that campaign funds play an enormous part in election strategy, particularly in this election.
The more a candidate’s name is mentioned, the more likely people are to respond to it, and the more likely they are to assume that the name they hear is a positive contributor to the welfare of the country.
Many voting Americans who choose to be involved in the outcome of a political election will voluntarily seek out information about candidates outside of advertising content. More often than not, these are party-affiliated citizens who know who they are going to vote for. However, many Americans who have a vote do not learn about the candidates on their own. Whether this is because they are too busy, because they don’t have the proper means to research, or because they don’t care, experts say that it is important for politicians to sway this group of mostly undecided votes; this is their motivation for creating advertisements.
Others think that politicians need to spread information using ads in order to reach the people who don’t receive it elsewhere. They say that despite how each candidate promotes his or her own ideas in a very biased fashion, the fact remains that they’re distributing (allegedly) useful information to the American public. According to Chris Palko of campaignsandelections.com, “The only way the barrage of political ads will go away is for the entire electorate to be so well-educated that political advertising would be worthless.”
Why does it seem like all political ads are negative attacks on the opponent rather than positive affirmations of the sponsoring candidate’s success? Cathy Allen, president of Campaign Connection of Seattle, proposes that negative campaigning may be beneficial for several reasons, for instance if the candidate has little name recognition, or if he or she is running against an incumbent. This may explain the barrage of attacks against President Obama this season.
One of the reasons that the candidates have been able to raise more money this season than in 2008 is that there is more money to go around, due to the gradual economic recovery. Increasing internet traffic yields more and more donations in each election season, which leads to higher and higher campaign endowments as the years go on.
Recent estimates show that President Obama has raised a total of $690.1 million since January toward his campaign and has spent $615.6 million so far, not including September’s numbers. In contrast, Mitt Romney has raised $633 million and spent $530.7 million, meaning that he has more left at his disposal than Obama. Although Obama has raised more total funds and spent more officially on television ads, there are many anonymous and super PAC (Political Action Committee) donors that have produced ads in favor of Romney that do not count towards the official numbers.
In fact, there is an immense proportion of campaign money this season that does not count towards the statistical figures due to anonymous and outside donations, according to the Huffington Post.
Additionally, Allison Brennan of cnn.com argues that it does not matter how much money is raised by each candidate, but how that money is allocated, that will make a difference in the election results.
Experts say that both candidates should have enough money to carry them through Election Day, and that based on advertising spending, the results could be closer than we think.