This is a stat we almost wish we hadn’t found.
Did all that super PAC spending make a difference? We’re keeping score on 21 popular races here.
This is a stat we almost wish we hadn’t found.
Did all that super PAC spending make a difference? We’re keeping score on 21 popular races here.
The Center for Responsive Politics estimates the 2012 election will cost $6 billion — a spending record that tops 2008’s total by more than $700 million. That massive price tag got us thinking (again): What else could we buy with $6 billion?
A few ideas:
This company, formed only a month ago, is so far the biggest corporate donor in Election 2012. But despite having the resources to donate nearly $5.3 million in just 12 days’ time, we had serious trouble figuring out what Specialty Group actually does. The company has no website and their primary office traces back to a private residence in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Eventually, lawyer William S. Rose Jr. issued a six-page press release in response to “numerous unsolicited phone calls, e-mails and texts” he and his family received following disclosure of the substantial corporate contributions.
In the release, Rose explains that he is Specialty Group’s CEO, president and a member of their board of directors, and that Specialty Group was formed to “buy, sell, develop and invest in a variety of real estate ventures and investments.” Though we can’t say we blame him (Rose claims the media contacted his ex-wife, a future landlord, a former client …), he appears to be less than pleased about the onslaught of media attention.
While the media or various “watchdog groups” may have a desire to know, or have a contrary political agenda making my private business potential fodder for their cannons, or even be compelled by a moral theology seeming to justify their requests for disclosure, there is neither a “right” to know nor a “duty” on my part to disclose … The business of Specialty Group is my “family secret”, a secret that will be kept — as allowed by applicable law — for at least another 50 years.
Great, non-partisan information on voting is available beyond the jump, from our friends at MTV’s Power of 12!
#GoVote and make it count. Find out how to vote here.
When xkcd first published “Money”, the mother of all infographics, nearly a year ago, Election 2012 was but a glimmer on the horizon.
(You can tell just how long ago that was by the mere $188.3 million that had been raised by presidential candidates at the time, now about $1.9 billion has been spent!)
Now that we know the election could cost as much as $6 billion, we’re looking at this epic infographic in a very different way. For instance, based on “Money”, here are some other interesting things that cost $6 billion:
"There is an expectation, I think, among many of these individuals that the rewards will go beyond mere gratitude."-Sheila Krumholz, Center for Responsive Politics executive director, talking 2012’s big-money donors on NPR’s “Morning Edition” this morning.
Lobbying spending continued its downward trajectory in the third quarter, as an election year wore on. This isn’t at all a surprise — or an anomaly.
And in case your wondering what a “decline” for K Street looks like, it’s this: $770 million, spent between July and September, compared to $817 million spent between April and June earlier this year.
A Campaign Map, Morphed By Money
Explore political ad spending through creative cartography. This animated map shows where superPACs and other outside groups spent their money — over a six-month period during the general election — to air political ads aimed at influencing the presidential race.
Donors in the auto industry prefer Mitt Romney over Barack Obama by a mile, according to Center for Responsive Politics research.
Through October 17th, Romney had received about $2.5 million from the auto industry, compared to Obama’s $416,000. And it’s mainly thanks to car dealers, a traditionally Republican bloc that has steered about 48% of all the auto industry cash the Massachusetts Republican has earned. Obama gets more cash from auto manufacturers, but it’s hardly enough to close the gap.
