COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama raised more than $200 million for his re-election campaign in 2011 and plans to raise more than the $750 million he spent in 2008 for his fall campaign against the Republican nominee. At some point, Americans have to step back and say "That's just crazy."
Every modern president seems to raise the bar on fundraising by trumping whatever record held up until that point. Reuters reported the Obama campaign is attempting to spread a campaign contributor program that has been very successful in attracting maximum contributors. A major incentive to becoming a maximum contributor (by donating $5,000 to the campaign) is the access it gives to the president and his advisers.
Obama certainly changed that game with a record amount in 2008. I'm not sure what the answer to this new level of campaign spending insanity is, but most intelligent people would agree that spending close to $1 billion on a presidential race is ridiculous, even for a country as large as the U.S.
Maybe the answer is to shorten the campaign period, but that tends to empower the incumbent. Requiring each campaign to spend the same amount further empowers an incumbent, as they have ready access to media -- something a challenger may not possess. Public financing of presidential campaigns just seems un-American. And mandatory media access would never work in a country where television markets widely differ from region to region.
It's for those very reasons that the fundraising process becomes more ingenious with every electoral cycle and the money raised skyrockets as well. Obama's staffers have proven themselves to be very proficient at fundraising for the president. In fact, they are the best ever. So until we devise a new system, expect every candidate to challenge the record fundraising of the previous election. If Mitt Romney is the GOP nominee -- and that appears more likely every day -- he will be able to give Obama's fundraising a better challenge than John McCain did in the last contest.
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