Who is the biggest primary spender in the 2012 election?

If you believe what Newt Gingrich told you, then Mitt Romney has purchased the GOP nomination by outspending his rivals. And on the surface, this might be true because he has spent more money on his primary campaign than any of them.

Some people make it sound like spending money in an election campaign is a bad thing, even though they know that President Obama will outspend the Republican challenger by a wide margin. Clearly, the easiest way to lose an election is to have a campaign that is "underfunded."

The question really should be whether a candidate is spending money wisely, not how much they spend. If you look at what was achieved for that spending, then Romney becomes a pretty prudent spender. Ron Paul has by far spent the most money and gotten the worst results of any candidate. Rick Santorum has spent the least... per delegate won, per vote won and per state won.

We all know that our elected leaders spend a lot of money. And we usually judge them by "what they get for the money they spent" rather than "the absolute amount of money they spent." So far, Ron Paul has spent a lot of money, and gotten very little in return.

Newt Gingrich has spent almost three times as much as Romney did for every state he won. And since we have an Electoral College, you can only win the White House by winning states, one by one. Ron Paul has won no states, and Newt Gingrich has won exactly two. This cannot be called using money efficiently.

But the all time biggest spender in this election so far isn't a Republican, it is President Barack Hussein Obama, D-Kenya. President Obama is running virtually unopposed in the Democrat primary race and has still somehow managed to spend $40 million, which is more than twice as much as Mitt Romney spent, and Romney had to run against seven other candidates... while Barack Obama was unopposed!

It is important to remember that "spending less" during an election campaign could guarentee defeat, because the Democrats are well funded by their close ties with Wall Street brokerages and banks, their strong support from corrupt corporations who want more taxpayer bailouts, their campaign donations from big powerful unions, and their strong backing by billionaires who want the middle class to pay all the taxes.

Here is a breakdown of campaign money collected so far by all the candidates...


Barack Obama.....$196 million
Mitt Romney................$88 million
Ron Paul.....................$36 million
Newt Gingrich.............$23 million
Rick Santorum............$21 million
Rick Perry...................$20 million
Herman Cain..............$16 million
Michelle Bachmnan.....$7 million
Tim Pawlenty...............$6 million
John Huntsman............$4 million


That's how much they collected. Now lets look at how much they have spent. The most recent figure I could find is through the end of last year. Without a doubt President Obama has spent even more in the last three months...

According to the Washington Post, as of Jan 1, the president running unopposed has spent over $120 million so far, which is more than TWICE as much as all his Republican challengers combined. And he has plenty more to spend, and still has lots of wealthy donors, corporate friends and special interest groups that want to keep him in power for four more years.