Submitted by David, May 3, 2008 07:51

I find it absolutely incredulous that the news media is harping about the amount of money being spent by the Obama campaign. Until the entrance of Senator Obama to the Presidential Campaign scene, Senator Clinton was known as the golden boy of campaign fund raising. So much so that she and her husband are currently being accused of campaign fraud in California. Nonetheless, unit this year she was known as the go to by many other democrat politicians when they wished to raise campaign funding.

Senator Obama has raised almost 80% of his campaign funding through the Internet and from everyday people. The interesting part here is how quickly the established news media has forgotten (or at least they are pretending to forget) about Senator Clinton's reputation. Without Senator Obama's presence, she would be listed as the all-time Democratic Party Presidential fund raiser, but realistically that is not so. Furthermore, the news media has been indiscriminately throwing out accusations of Senator Obama's campaign spending without evaluating and comparing the actual spending habits of both Democratic Party candidates. For example:

Senator Clinton is well known for her lavish spending on personal comfort at all the locations she has stayed any significant time. She has mismanaged her campaign spending to the point that she chose to lend herself (campaign) 5 million dollars at the beginning of the year. Her continued careless spending has left her campaign over 15 million dollars of debt (and growing) trailing her where ever she goes. Now she has solicited outside independent groups, supporting her campaign, to conduct some of her campaign warfare for her; and to some extent the news media has been providing her some free campaign support with quite a bit of less than objective coverage of the Presidential race. Is this the example we should expect to see if she were to become President of the USA?

Senator Obama, on the other hand, has been able to raise a lot more campaign financing than Senator Clinton. To his campaign's credit, his has been spending more on getting his message out to the voters and less (equivalently) on personal comfort. He has used his financing for the purpose that his supporters have provided that funding. Better yet if the old adage, "about you pay back who you owe is true," then who does Senator Obama owe and who does Senator Clinton owe? Now the news media is criticizing him for doing what his supporters donated funding to do. What the media should be covering is what these candidates are doing with the funding they currently have.

Although Senator Clinton is over 15 million dollars in campaign debt, she has reserved about 23 million dollars for post Democratic Party Presidential nomination campaigning. Senator Obama has about 9 million dollars reserved for the same purpose. From first looks, this appears to make sense. However, after further investigation it seems odd that a Presidential candidate who is 15 million dollars in debt would rather pay that debt instead of ignoring it. Well here is a little update about campaign financing. After a candidate running for public office has completed running, he is required to clear all campaign debts. In some case the candidate ends up using his own money. On the flip side, if there is an excess of funding remaining after all debts are cleared that money goes to that candidate for personal use or roll-over into a new (different) campaign account. So either way, any candidate who walks away from the primary races could walk away with a considerable amount of money.

My predictions are: 1) If Senator Obama loses, he pays his half-million dollar debt then leaves with over 9 million dollars. 2) If Senator Clinton loses, she will petition her supporters to help pay off her debt (and they will) then leave with about 23 millions dollars. Don't you think this is worth investigating rather than how much the candidates are spending?

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