With gasoline prices above $3 a gallon, why shouldn't 2008 be the most expensive U.S. election ever? Granted, the Federal Reserve is slashing interest rates as though there wasn't a drop of inflation in the economy. But according to CNNMoney, the candidates running for president this year are poised to raise $1 billion, 14% more than the $880 million they raised in 2004. That 14% more may be a good proxy for the rate of inflation to buy influence in the White House.
The companies with the most money are also giving candidates the most money. These include the following:
- Lehman Brothers Holdings (NYSE: LEH)
- Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER)
- Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS)
- Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)
- Google (NASDAQ: GOOG)
- Citigroup (NYSE: C)
Law firms are also big givers to these candidates -- three of whom have legal training. The article provides details on which candidate raised how much from these various firms. The question for those who are not among these big givers is whether their generosity will create the best government that money can buy -- for the big donors -- to the detriment of the rest of us.
What presidential decisions do these contributions buy? We have no way of knowing whether there's a specific quid pro quo, but these corporate donors might see themselves as paying an insurance premium to keep the next president on their side -- regardless of who he or she might be.
Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He owns Citigroup shares and has no financial interest in the other securities mentioned.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-05-2008 @ 12:32PM
Brockage said...
The one thing we need: full disclosure of political contributions.
The one thing we do not need: taxpayers opening up a new trough for politicians to feed out of on their way to the next, bigger trough.
2-05-2008 @ 1:07PM
G. Arnold Williams said...
In the interest of full disclosure, it should be pointed out that these are the sum of all the individual contributions by people who work for the firm, not corporate donations, which are illegal. When you have large companies, with lots of very well paid employees, the donations totals for critical elections has always been, and will always be large. While noone is going to deny that the potential for influence is there, it is also true that many of those donations are made by Americans who simply feel strongly about their country, its future, and who they believe is best qualified to lead us out of our current problems. They have every right to donate their money to help their choice, even though they work for some big corporation, and frequently to candidates with the opposite point of view from their boss.