Primaries: Where Did the Money Go?

Thank God the primaries are finally over! But if you think we ended up with just Barack Obama and John McCain coming out on top, think again. This New York Times story, “Cashing In on Obama and McCain,” analyzes how the all of the presidential candidates spent more than $900 million during the primaries. More than half of the funds went to just a few dozen companies through the end of May.

Here’s the overall breakdown of where the money went (check out the multimedia chart).

• Media and consulting: $337 million
• Payroll and taxes: $148 million
• Other: $128 million
• Travel: $105 million
• Direct mail: $99 million
• Events and merchandise: $50 million
• Telemarketing: $46 million

Among the companies benefiting from this largesse:

• Media and consulting: GMMB (coordinates Obama’s advertising and media planning), $84.9 million
• Other: Verizon (provides phone service for campaigns for all candidates) $4.3 million
• Travel: Air Charter Team (coordinates charter flights for Hillary Clinton and Obama), $29.8 million
• Direct mail: Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates (conducts Hillary Clinton polling and direct mail), $18.1 million
• Events and merchandise: Tigereye Promotions (creates Obama merchandise), $5.6 million
• Telemarketing: Campaign Organizing (Clinton), $7 million

For more details, see the “Winners in a Long Presidential Campaign” multimedia show and click on the bubbles to see other companies and how they fared.