Beyond The Smear

Beyond mud-slinging commercials, DAME wonders if instead we could be feeding a small nation

By Diane Cook
Published: Dec 13, 2007

With over a year to go until the actual election, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have broken records this year for the amount of campaign contributions they’ve received. And all the candidates are likely to break records, considering the presidential race got off to a ridiculously early start this long season. It is believed that each candidate will have to raise over $100 million to even compete in the primary. What if presidential sponsorship were something to advertise, like in NASCAR, so candidates would have to wear decals on their suits when they made public appearances? Would your name be scribbled on Obama’s pant leg?

It’s a substantial amount of money we’re talking about, and it’s interesting to think about other ways that money could be spent, given that a certain percentage of it is indeed donated by private donors, people like us. What could happen if instead of paying for advertising and cocktail receptions, the campaign funds that were raised were contributed somewhere else?

For example, on the website for Doctors Without Borders, they claim that 100 bucks would keep one child suffering from famine, nourished and fed for a year. Hillary Clinton has raised $63 million so far. That amount could feed 630,000 kids for a year, or 1000 malnourished people for the rest of their lives.

Here are some other ideas:

Barack Obama’s campaign has raised almost $59 million. That money could elevate 2945 American families out from under the poverty line.

Or, forget poverty line. How about totally supporting more than 450 American families for a whole year? Rudy Giuliani could, with his $34.2 million. Or he could just fund 760 teachers for the kids of those 450 families.

Hillary Clinton could put nearly 1000 students through 4 year colleges.

Mitt Romney, the clear winner in the Republican campaign finance race, could take his 44.4 million and pay for the health costs of 71,800 children this year.

And at the low end of the spectrum of high profile candidates, John Edwards, with his $23.1 million could feed 3279 American families this year, and John McCain, who is, amazingly, almost out of money, could have paid for the heating costs of 15,000 Americans this winter.

We asked Save the Children what they would do if someone wrote them a check for, say, $265 million—which is roughly the amount the candidates have raised so far. Here are some benefits of those deep pockets:

–10,192 reading teachers could conduct literacy programs for a year.
–They could take all the necessary action to save the lives of roughly 185,000 newborns in sub-Saharan Africa.

Imagine if one of those candidates donated their money instead of using it to fund media advertisements. Wouldn’t you totally vote for them?

Sadly, the amount the candidates are raising won’t even touch the amount needed to finally clean up after Hurricane Katrina. But, on a brighter note, since none of these candidates propose withdrawing from Iraq immediately, they could pool their money and fund that war for, oh, about 14 hours.

Diane Cook visited all the websites of the front runners in the 2008 presidential campaign. She likes John Edwards's site the best, and John McCain's the least. She was a producer for public radio's "This American Life," and has written for the New York Times Magazine.

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