Obama Fundraising Totals $745 Million

President-elect Barack Obama continues to set records and make history even after Obama's historic landslide election. Final tallies to Federal Election Commision show that Obama raised a record $745 million during the 2008 electoral cycle including over $104 million in the four-week period from October 16-November 24. By contrast, John McCain raised "only" $367 million for his candidacy. Still, both candidates raised over $1 billion dollars for an election cycle in which over $5 billion was spent by all candidates, political parties, and outside interests! The Obama campaign is still raising money as it offers specialty items such as commemorative mugs, t-shirts, etc. through BarackObama.com. Obama thanked his national and Illinois fundraising teams at an the private Standard Club in Chicago.

Lest anyone, e.g., Republicans say that the election went to the highest bidder, I need only remind them that the first successful big-money Presidential candidate was George W. Bush who raised $100 million during a quarter in the 2000 election cycle. At that time, it was considered an astronomical amount of amount to have been raised in only 3 months. Bush raised $270 million for the 2004 election which he "won" over Democratic challenger John Kerry. Together they both raised over $500 million. It is both ironic and fortuitous that Bush ushered in the era of big money Presidential fundraising by which all future candidate fundraising would be judged. Certainly Hillary Clinton also raised the bar by signaling in January 2007 that the Clinton campaign expected to raise over $150 million dollars for her Presidential candidacy. She eventually raised over $229 million by the end of May 2008 before conceding the Democratic Presidential nomination to eventual winner Barack Obama in June 2008.

All in all, the prodigious fundraising by candidates during this 2-year campaign has rendered the public financing system for presidential elections in which over 33 million taxpayers mark of a $3 donation on their tax form obsolete. Some would say that now only the really powerful and well connected can afford the unspoken $100 million entry fee required to be a viable candidate. Certainly this presents a signifant political barrier to entry. Others would say that this is the ultimate practice of free speech in that candidates and can participate in the giving and receiving of nearly unlimited amounts of money. In either case, this election was "the longest and most expensive presidential election in American history," according to Michael Toner, chairman of the Federal Election Commission.