Grab and Keel

The Secret of Obama’s Campaign Success, Soft Money

In Part One I showed you how to find Senator Obama’s contributions on the FEC website. Following the drill downs, you saw not only the tabulations of his total contributions, but also the number of individual contributions. You saw how the number of contributions below an aggregate sum of $200 is contained in the remainder of “Net Contributions”, after “Party Transfers” and “Individual Contributions”, (Aggregate donations from donors, meeting the $200 threshold.), are deducted.

Depending on how many people you assign to this remainder, the TOTAL number of contributors is still probably less than 300,000. This does not correspond with the July Campaign claims of 1.5 million contributors. If you missed it, or are still unsure, check back HERE. Otherwise, keep reading.

In our Part One search, you may have noticed some PAC (Political Action Committee) money on his FEC Candidate Summary Report Id P8003338. Senator Obama has said he would not accept PAC money. However, as far as I know most of that was received before his announcement, and at least some was returned. On the FEC map page, the figure shown is a sum of the balance received and sent back, so it looks different.

The Obama Campaign has certainly been spectacular in the acquisition of total contributions, if not contributors. However, the other thing they at which they have very adept is the husbanding of their funds. How is that? I will show you how in today’s hunt.

We are going back to the FEC Website. We are looking for “soft money”. Soft money is that which is expended in support for, or against a candidate, but is not campaign money.  It is expended by agencies, organizations, lobbyists, or non-profit groups. There are generally two types of groups: 527 and 501 organizations.

Typically soft money is used in voter registration, activities that inform, or educate and are issue based. 527’s and 501s’ may not directly promote a candidate. However, they may mention names in the course of a promotion of issues.Go to http://www.fec.gov/. Once you are, there go over to the list on the left side under the logo and click, as before,  ”Campaign Finance Reports and Data”.

Search #1. Next, click on the link that says “Electronically Filed Independent Expenditures”. The page will inform you of what is available here. See below:

[All electronically filed reports of independent expenditures are included here. (Senate campaign committees and other committees devoted exclusively to Senate campaigns file paper reports with the Secretary of the Senate. None of the paper filings from these committees are included here. All other federal campaigns and committees who exceed $50,000 in activity must file electronically with the FEC.)]

Now you have a choice, you can look for a range of dates activities or just today, by clicking one of the links, or filling in a range of dates. If you use dates be sure to follow the format they want.  Just for fun, rather then June, Lets look at the month of April where the build up to the Pennsylvania Primary occurred. The Primary occurred on the 22^nd. Click Search.

I won’t show you the list, it’s too long. However, I invite you to scroll down the list. One caveat, the list will show expenditures, for both Republican and Democratic purposes and several different races.  You will see many huge expenditures in the support of Obama, and many small ones in support of Clinton.

For example on April 16^th alone, the SEIU spent $77,231.92 to Clinton’s $2763.74. On April 23^rd, the day after the primary, Moveon.org, reported 16,890 supporting Obama to Clinton’s goose egg. At the same time the Republican Majority, in equal opportunity fashion, spent $24,923 for each, opposing both Clinton and Obama.

Millions of dollars in soft money has already been expended in this race, both for and against candidates. Looking at this list and playing with the date variables is an interesting way to see how the flow of money from these  organizations influences elections. Again, have fun! 

Search #2. What if you just want to look at a list of monies spent on behalf of Obama? Go back to the Campaign Finance Reports and Data page. Click the link titled: Disclosure Data Search page. Scroll down to “Candidate Search” and click that link. 

You should see a list of groups who have contributed. However, this list is compiled monthly with the Candidate Reports. If you want to know who has filed between these reports, you will have to use the first search.

I think you will find the amount of money in support of Obama, from organizations like SEIU, and Moveon.org, Acorn.org for ads, paper and pamphlets, and phone banks has been pretty spectacular. These organizations allowed him to cut costs in these efforts, even while no purported direct link existed. That is not to say other candidates don’t benefit from 527 and 501 activities, they do. However, during this period, Obama was decrying the use of that other well known money machine: PACs. In addition, during his entire campaign Obama has, as I blogged on the 18th, promoted the idea that his campaign was purely grassroots and small donor oriented. So since that was a lie, mistruth, unfortunate error, now the question to ask ourselves, is what do these groups want in exchange for all this money? Why did they not support Clinton? The answers are out there, “blowin in the wind”.

I Own My Own Vote, Just Say No Deal, Puma Pac, the Denver Group