2004 Campaign money

Hello intelligent part of 12oz

Im turning in an examproject soon, its about the Presidential Election 2004, more specifly the money used for the Bush and Kerry campaigns.

Where did the money come from?

What was it spent on and why?

Any info, links, help etc. you might have about campaign money will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

wow.this is one of those topics that is extremely complex, like irs tax code or immigration law.

after people started getting pissed about the direct financing of politics by major corporations, there was a bipartisan agreement in congress to reform the whole thing.. that has created some loopholes, there has also been some evidence that a few people, including house majority leader tom delay, who may not be playing by these rules. he recently got congress to change a law that said representatives charged with a felony have to step down; now it's only those who are convicted. but i digress.

"527" groups also played a role in the election. they are "non-profits" and privately fuinded. for example, the swift boat veterans for truth are a 527 that ran attack ads against kerry and moveon.org is a liberal 527 group

this website has a ton of info:

http://www.citizen.org/congress/campaign/index.cfm

(check the links to the right)

plus

http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/donordems.asp

breaks elction 2004 down with charts

Thanks symbols.

Anyone else know anything about campaign money?

Well I don't know all that much about campaign finance other than politicians are heavily influenced by corporate lobbies. While I think the McCain-Feingold act did some good things like ban soft money from corporations it pretty much paved the way for 527 groups to operate with impunity and widely publicize blatant lies. Groups such as "Swiftboat Veterans For Truth".

But here's some more links:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...3/20020327.html

http://www.law.stanford.edu/library/campaignfinance/

http://www.forbes.com/2004/02/05/cz_ms_0205norquist.html

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/campaignfinance/index.asp

I happen to think that tracing and tracking this money is very important. I would be interested to learn of any tools and resources you find especially helpful. I do know that corporations are required to provide a statement of assets every two years now which is one of the good things that came out of the enron debacle. But as far as tracing where this money goes.....

I just picked up a book tracing terrorist financing. It was interesting because there was no price on the book... so we looked it up on amazon and there it was waaaaay over priced. We surmised that it must be out of print OR perhaps even pulled from shelves. It looks like it's got some heavy duty information in it. It's called "Modern Jihad - Tracing the dollars behind the Terror Networks." - by Loretta Napoleoni by the way if you are interested.