Money buys anything in America

In prime time tomorrow night three of the largest US television networks will abandon their advertised programs and give about 25 million viewers 30 minutes of Barack Obama. Of course, Barack Obama - or at least his Democratic Party - are paying. At least one million to each to the networks. Even the Bush cheer squad network, Fox, couldn't refuse.

Money buys anything in America.

Barack Obama has an awful lot. He is the most successful US Presidential fundraiser ever-he has pulled in over $600 million - and he's hit that mark in the most costly election campaign ever staged anywhere. When it's all over next week, the cost of this Presidential race - including the $1.6 billion raised privately by Obama and McCain, government funding and other costs such as the primaries - will around $5.3 billion. That is about three times the value of New Zealand's yearly meat and dairy exports to the US - it's second largest market.

Campaign finance experts have already classified this contest as one of the transformational elections that will dramatically change the way politicians pay for future campaigns. They predict that days of the $1000 a plate dinner are gone. In will come the $30,000 a plate bash - the kind of select event that the world's richest man, Warren Buffet hosted for Obama. But the vast bulk of the money will come from where Barack Obama found his - micro donors who give over the internet

Not since the billionaire , Ross Perot, ran in 1992, has a Presidential candidate had the money to buy himself a half hour of prime time across America one week before polling day.

Last month alone, Obama raised $150 million, shattering the $66 million single-month record (also his own) and re-shaping the perception of the fundraising potential for a presidential candidate in the internet age. This brings Obama's total to more than $600 million, $95.7 million short of the $695.7 million the Democrat contender, John Kerry and President Bush raised between them in the 2004 election.

So what has changed so dramatically to push the numbers through the roof this time? Barack Obama would have you believe that a groundswell of small donors , using the internet to make modest enough donations to his campaign, is the main reason. That's true enough - but not the whole story.

More important was a savvy decision on his part early in the contest to opt out of the American system that gives candidates access to tens of millions of state dollars for their campaigns - provided they accept some caps. He argued that running a campaign for the White House based on small contributions achieved what the public election financing system could not; curb the influence of rich outside interest groups. Obama has actually made a virtue to the American people in hauling record shattering amounts of money - without spending caps.

But because McCain opted into the public finance system, August was the last month he could raise private funds. The decision also means he cannot spend anymore than $84 million in public money on his campaign.

So Barack Obama's belief that the support for him of small donors across America would more than justify his decision to refuse public funds has proved spectacularly correct. He's found more than three million individual donors. But he's also picked up the lion's share of the big corporate and institutional donors. Wall Steet bankers are McCain's biggest donors with Merrill Lynch the single largest at $350,000. But Obama has picked up nearly twice that amount in a single donation from Harvard University and an equal sum from Wall Street's Goldman Sachs.

Money buys everything - even Presidents.

Photo / AP