More than a couple of times different people have made comments regarding finances in the Ron Paul campaign. Even my friend, Peppa, one of RP's staunchest supporters, commented something to the effect that she wished he had spent more on advertising.Having been a candidate for a state house office, raised finances, and approved spending (though on nowhere near the grand scale of a presidential campaign), my interest was piqued.
I am a bookkeeper by training and by major work experience, so my interest was tweaked at the same time.Thus with my interest being both piqued and tweaked, I took a look at one of his financial reports just to see what was going on.
The report used in my research is for the month of January 2008, with the report being filed February 20, 2008.
Cash on Hand at Beginning of Reporting Period............$7,839,420.90
Total Receipts This Period............................... 4,635,626,06
SUBTOTAL.................................................12,475,046.96
Total Disbursements This Period.........................< 6,472,858.78 >
CASH ON HAND AT CLOSE OF REPORTING PERIOD................ 6,002,188,18
TO DATE NET CONTRIBUTIONS................................32,562,115.77
TO DATE NET OPERATING EXPENDITURES.......................26,512,232.30
No loans were received.
Expenditures were reduced by offsets (refunds,rebates).. 212,608.66
Interest/Dividends as Other Receipts.................... 5,010.63
Contribution Refunds ................................... 10,335,50
The campaign did not allocate any expenses by state.
This report is 2,158 pages long.
Receipts start at Page 4, with 3 entries to a page, and are reported through pages 1498, which only contains 2 entries. That would disclose 4,479 donors.
Starting at Page 1,499 is the listing of expenditures for the month. This is 659 pages of itemized expenditures, 3 to a pages--except the last page which was only 2 items. That would make 1,976 itemized expenditures. For my purposes, I only researched to page 1552, and only the first item on that page. It should be noted that there are some earlier dates recorded, which would seem to me to be someone late in turning in bills/receipts for payment/reimbursement.
For this research project, I only looked at expenses posted during the first 10 days of the month (this period has several 'earlier' receipts which are being reimbursed apparently during this time frame). So, keep in mind that these expenditures are only for a third of the month.
Credit Card Processing Fees.......................$ 310,878...10.3%
Air Travel........................................ 121,133... 4.0%
Bulk Mail Processing.............................. 286,710... 9.5%
Copy Product...................................... 117...
Office Supplies................................... 2,107... .1%
Postage........................................... 19...
Service Charge (appear to be bank charges)........ 75...
Telecommunications................................ 257,301... 8.5%
TV Spot Production................................ 912,716...30.2%
Print Advertising................................. 7,437... .2%
Radio Spot Advertising............................ 517,263...17.1%
Campaign Buttons.................................. 4,090... .1%
Shirts............................................ 19,371... .6
Consultants (Field Work).......................... 15,678... .5%
Freight........................................... 68,443... 2.3%
Signs/Supplies.................................... 192,681... 6.4%
Bulk Printing Brochures........................... 59,230... 2.0%
Contribution Refunds.............................. 3,300... .1%
Rent Expense...................................... 25,120... .8%
Audio/Visual...................................... 3,335... .1%
Entertainment..................................... 2,880... .1%
Accounting........................................ 1,180...
Petition Coordination............................. 18,000... .6%
Polling........................................... 85,657... 2.8%
Software Maintenance.............................. 500...
Ballot Access Coordinators........................ 8,365... .3%
Filing Fees....................................... 10,750... .4%
Gas/Mileage Reimbursement......................... 1,082...
Reimbursement Expense (?)......................... 3,982... .1%
Voter Lists....................................... 12,000... .4%
Web Page.......................................... 28,269... .9%
E-Mail Service.................................... 939...
Federal Express................................... 486...
Hotel Accom./Food/Catering........................ 22,052... .7%
Notary Services................................... 900...
Field Coordinator................................. 1,375...
PR Services....................................... 1,000...
Computer Supplies................................. 37...
Parking........................................... 39...
Utilities......................................... 147...
Video/DVD Processing.............................. 7,500... .2%
TOTAL EXPENDITURES FOR THIS 10-DAY PERIOD....... $ 3,018,046
For the record, the small amounts that didn't have a "% of Disbursements" figure, amount to $7,396, or .3%.
Adding up the obvious Bulk Mailing, Radio, TV, Buttons, Shirts, Signs, Print Advertising, etc., gives a total of $2,035,384, or 67% of the expenditures for this time period. I didn't set a criteria for myself to look at the name on each individual entry, though it seems like I did, or nearly always so. I do not recall seeing any items specifically for a radio station or tv station, i.e., KPAX TV or KFI 900.
Does anyone have any idea on what the typical advertising % is? I don't.
I did not include Telecommunications in this number, as I'm not sure what all was put in there.
The Credit Card Processing Fees were astounding to me. I'm aware that Visa, et al, charge merchants a varying fee schedule, and know Pay Pal does as well, but I wouldn't have considered it as capable of taking a large chunk of change....the third largest expense!
Because of my having campaigned, I'm aware that notary fees are involved because of all the filings that have to take place.
Speaking of filings, the Filing Fee in the list was for Louisiana. If all states charged the same amount, every campaign would have to pay out over half a million dollars just to the 50 states!
And how about those Voter Lists. There were only 2 entries, but yet that took $12,000.
Ballot Access Coordination, Petition Coordination, Consultants, and Polling companies--while not huge amounts--at least not on this report--can add up quickly.
An interesting tidbit--there is an expense paid to the Tancredo campaign for $1500. It is coded office supplies. This tells me the RP people were being cost conscious and picked up on a good deal.
Hopefully, these figures will give some of you fine people something to chew over when you contemplate what Ron Paul woulda, coulda, shoulda done with the campaign.
Furthermore, I would hope that it would be a bit instructive to some of you who believe he shoulda gone third party. Treated as the bastard child, such candidates have to pay full bore for everything--from lawyers fighting states election laws and election law determinations by some bureaucrat, to having to have ballot access coordinators, petition coordinators, and, of course, buying voter lists from the various states or counties.
And a final comment.........it looks like people can ask for their beer money back.