Candidate Tote Board

[mojowork_n]

There are THREE that things we've learned from the media
about presidential elections:

• "It's a Horse Race"
  
  
• By universal acclamation (and the amount of time
  spent in handicapping), that's the aspect of the process we should all focus
  on, when making our choices for the next Commander-In-Chief.
  
  
• "Who spends the most money wins the election." (At least 80 or 90 percent
  of the time.)
  

So here's the tote board. opensecrets.org is a useful link you might
just want to bookmark. The left side of the page is full of links to comparisons,
and assorted, interesting data fields that you can click through...

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contriball.php?cycle=2012

The numbers speak for themselves. Since "Citizens United" we don't
have all of them, of course, but this is a place to start.

DISCLAIMER:

Amounts and contributions to and from SUPER PAC's aren't shown in any candidate's
contributions list.

I think it's especially illustrative that the largest single amount listed, almost half a million dollars,
went to a candidate I don't think I heard talked about once:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_McCotterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_McCotter

Representing Michigan's 11th congressional district, a member of the House Financial Services
Committee, Republican "Thad" McCotter dropped out of the horse race at the end of September,
after having declared (as a horse jockey), on July 2nd, 2011.

The $450,000 donated by his congressional committee may be a typo.

I really don't know. But it was like a particularly large pebble dropping
in to the ocean, with no discernible splash that I ever noticed.

On the other hand, when you look at some of the major candidates' top, largest donors,
there are some interesting results:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/head2head.php?cand1=N00005906&cand2=N00000286&x=20&y=26