Shenanigans Scoring the primaries so far

Author: Alex Garlick

The cool crisp weather and changing of the leaves you're feeling this week mean one thing: Soon the airwaves will be filled with ads touting things too good to be true, lavish amounts of money will be spent and, on one cold winter morning, children will wake up early to checkÖ the election results! That's right, primary season is coming. New Hampshire's TV screens will be showing more of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton than Peyton Manning and Ryan Seacrest combined. In fact, the 2008 Presidential Election will be a constant headline for the next 15 months or so, and for good reason - it's an event that generates over a billion dollars in economic activity between fundraising, campaign spending, logistics, media attention and John Edwards' haircuts.

At this point in the race, the keen political follower is paying more attention to the accountants than the strategists, as each candidate's fundraising total is of the utmost importance. There is a staggering amount of money out there. It's also troubling when you consider that each big check that is cashed from a major interest group will be repaid in one way or another down the line. As Robin Williams suggested in Man of the Year, maybe politicians should dress like NASCAR drivers and wear the logos of all their supporters on their chests.

Right now, fundraising totals are more important than what the polls say in Iowa and New Hampshire. Like it or not, a candidate's war chest is the source of media ads, quality field operations and, most importantly, a sign of vitality in the eyes of the media and public. So without further ado, let's take a peek at the fundraising scoreboard for your 2008 Presidential hopefuls. (These statistics are from OpenSecrets.org)

Democrats:

Hillary Clinton≠≠ : $63,075,927

Things started out well for Clinton, but her fundraising lead was cut down in the last quarter. Sources inside the campaign say that despite the reduced money flow, Clinton is refusing to hire ANY interns.

Barack Obama ≠: $58,912,520

So far the star of the money race, Obama has gained on the Hill-Billies despite his pledge to not accept cash from registered lobbyists and PACs. Too bad he can't spend it on experience to cover for the fact he's only been in the show for 30-something months now.

John Edwards : $23,129,158

Another Democrat to eschew PAC funding. He seems to have a pretty good shot in Iowa, which one would hope he would considering he's been running for president for six years now.

Republicans:

Mitt Romney : $44,432,350

The squeaky clean former governor of Massachusetts and his supporters, who I like to call MittWits, are chugging along quite nicely. However, there is no amount of money that can be spent to convince the ideological wing of his party, particularly Evangelicals, that they should support a Mormon president. At least he has the endorsement of HBO's polygamy show, Big Love, which alluded to the governor two weeks ago.

Rudy Giuliani : $35,629,265

Much like Obama on the Democratic side, the second-place candidate actually won the second quarter of fundraising. It is a lot of money though. It might even be enough to get Roger Clemens to come back and pitch .500 ball for Giuliani's beloved Yankees next year.

John McCain : $25,328,694

Wait, is this guy still in the race? In all seriousness, the more important number in McCain's campaign is $3,224,428, which is how much money he actually has left after spending furiously to keep his campaign on life support.

So can we pencil in Clinton, Obama or Romney for the oval office? Not quite. There is a lot of criticism of our electoral process, but the optimist in me likes to think that there's not a For Sale sign on the lawn at 1600 Pennslyvania Ave.

Alex Garlick '08.5, is a Poltical Science and Economics major from Needham, Mass.