« It don't mean a thing if your seat's not a swing | Main | Wheatcroft's words of wisdom »
July 27, 2008
Calfornians: we want your money not your votes
That's basicially the pitch that Presidential candidates make in California, the most populous of US States. As electoral-vote.com puts in today's edition of their daily briefing:
"In California Obama is comfortably ahead and will win the state easily. Neither Obama nor McCain is likely to campaign much here. It is one of the ironies of the electoral college system that a state with 10% of the country's population will basically be ignored."
If you follow the money trail - via CNN - you can see that California is where Obama raised $30 million (his top state) and Clinton $25 million (just below her home state of New York). Yet they only spent $6 million each in advertising in California during the primaries. It was more a cash cow for the rest of the campaign; and it is even more so for the presidential election itself.
There's nothing wrong with people giving money to support their candidate nationally. It seems a shame though that Californians are more electorally effective with their cheque book and pen, than they are with a ballot paper and pencil. It could be argued that to McCain and Obama Californians' electronic bank transfers matter more than their electronic votes. There is another way though.
Posted by malcolmclark on July 27, 2008
