Money and Campaigns

(This article is written for the weekly Carnival of Ohio Politics now approaching it's 8th week thanks to Paul Miller at Northwest Ohio Net...don't forget to stop by and visit his site tomorrow to read what some of the best of Ohio bloggers are writing about.)

Though it's said that who has the most money doesn't always equal a win, it can help. Especially when it comes to money for air time for advertising.

Yet let's take a look at the amount of money being raised on the Governor and the Senate Race.

According to the Akron Beacon Journal

Strickland raised almost $2 million since the last filing deadline in July, giving the eastern Ohio congressman a fundraising total of $3 million. The campaign has more than $2.1 million on hand after expenses.

Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, said Tuesday he raised $1.5 million since July, for a fundraising total of $2.5 million with $1.5 million on hand.

Petro has raised only $872,458 since July but said he still has $2 million on hand. Petro, elected attorney general in 2002, spent $1.9 million on early TV advertising to close a gap with Blackwell.

The three have already spent $3.7 million and raised $9.6 million.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer shares these numbers:

Senator Mike DeWine, raised nearly $1 million for his re-election campaign in the last quarter of 2005, new campaign finance records show, giving him a treasury of $4.3 million.

Preliminary figures from the Hackett campaign, to be filed by today's Federal Election Commission deadline, show that Hackett raised $465,779. After paying expenses, his campaign had $229,783 in the bank on Dec. 31.

Brown had $2.37 million after expenses, although $496,882 of it came from the last quarter, barely beating Hackett's take. But Brown, a seven-term congressman, already had $2 million on hand.

That means between these candidates they have close to 13 million dollars on hand right now.

This is of course before the primary race and before the election that is what they had on hand as of December 31st. Thirteen million may not seem like alot anymore, especially when compared to presidential races that cost hundreds of millions. Yet with two children in college I couldn't help doing a small comparison. Using the dollar figure of $50,000 which is a little higher than some colleges would cost for a four year degree here in Ohio and not enough for some of the Ohio Colleges; 260 High School Seniors could get a pretty good education for 13 million.

With the quality of the political ads and the way some of this gets to the point towards the end where you feel as if you hear one more radio ad or see one more television ad you will lose it? I wonder how much better of a deal it would be to have some of those same people who donate to political campaigns decide that money could be better spent and really make a difference.

Okay, I'm dreaming....but it's a nice one....shhhh...don't wake me up yet....