 | $4.5 Billion for Advertising Equals $450-600 Million for Consultants |
PQ Media reports that if trends continue for the 2008 election cycle, $4.5 Billion will be spent on advertising. That’s 64 percent more than was spent on advertising in the 2004 election cycle. 10 to 15 percent of that $4.5 Billion will go to the consultants who come up with the advertisements as their commission. Do the math, folks: that’s $450 million to $600 million in cash headed to political consultants in the upcoming year. Do you think that’s an exaggeration? Consider what happened in the 2004 campaign, when Bob Shrum — one consultant to John Kerry — pocketed $150 million, while Bush consultant Maverick Media grabbed $177 million in commissions. That’s $327 million right there, enriching the people whispering in the candidates’ ears that they need to spend more, more, more. These are the media people who are so eager for a juicy commission that when they’re cut out of the action, they’ll start up their own campaign.
Giving money to a candidate to promote their candidacy is highly inefficient from a giver’s perspective. Let’s say you give $100 to a campaign. Fundraisers get a 10 percent commission right off the top, taking your effective contribution down to $90. Another $9 to $13 is taken by the media consultant, dropping your effective contribution down to $80. The credit card processor will take another cut. The media outlets charge more than the expense of broadcasting to take their own cut. When you contribute to a campaign, maybe half of your money goes to various big-shot moneyed interests first.
Don’t feed the piggies. If you believe in a candidate enough to give $500, don’t give the candidate $500. Instead, hire yourself for that amount of time. Pay yourself $20 an hour and spend 25 hours doing what you do best, which is connecting to people who dig you. If you want that to be mediated, blog about your candidate or podcast or make a YouTube video. If you’re a direct person, go out there and spend 25 hours talking to friends, neighbors and other people you know about why you’re so excited about your candidate of choice. That way, all your resources will go to the cause you believe in, and none of it will have to go to the greedy hungry piggies.
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Well that’s all very nice, but what if I have more money than I have time? Time I don’t have. Money I’ve got.
Comment by Carla — 12/12/2007 @ 9:32 am
Then you CAN choose to convert your money into time.
Comment by Peregrin Wood — 12/12/2007 @ 9:36 am
If you really, really, really feel the need to contribute money to a candidate’s campaign, do it directly — not to any group calling itself _____ for Obama, not to a solicitation letter, not to any other politician who has started up his or her own PAC to support that candidate, and not to any special personalized web page set up by another individual who may get a cut. Just write a check directly to the campaign.
Orrrrr, you could call up the campaign and agree to donate some of your money, but only on the condition that it be earmarked to a certain cause that’s more direct.
But these are second-best measures.
Comment by Jim — 12/12/2007 @ 9:39 am