So what’s Obama going to do with all his leftover campaign money?

From CNN Political Research Director Robert Yoon

(CNN) – So you’ve just finished a hard-fought campaign for federal office, and after paying off campaign expenses and debts, you find yourself with a tidy surplus of funds left over in your campaign coffers. What’s a candidate to do?

The campaign may be over, but there are strict federal guidelines on how unspent campaign funds may be used after the polls have closed and all the votes have been counted. Win or lose, candidates have a number of options available to them on how to dispose of any remaining funds in their campaign kitties, but not surprisingly, “personal use” is not one of the options.

Candidates with leftover funds may do any or all of the following:

· return the money back to the contributors;

· donate an unlimited amount to charity;

· donate an unlimited amount to a national, state, or local political party committee;

· contribute money to other candidates, subject to allowable federal contribution limits;

· convert their campaign committee into a political action committee;

· transfer the money to a future federal campaign account.

Therefore, if President-elect Barack Obama finds himself with a surplus of cash from his 2008 presidential campaign account, he could essentially use that money for a future federal campaign, say, a 2012 re-election bid.

The rules are slightly different for Republican nominee John McCain because he acceped public funding during the general election. McCain may exercise any of the above options when it comes to leftover funds from his primary or pre-convention campaign account. But any surplus funds from the taxpayer-financed $84.1 million he received after accepting the GOP nomination must be returned to the U.S. Treasury.

However, this may all be a moot point if both candidates spent most or all of their campaign warchests. Exactly how much money Obama and McCain have left in their accounts won’t be known until December 4 when the next file campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission.

Why Barack Obama was right to reject public financing — Huffington Post

By John K. Wilson
HuffingtonPost.com
June 20, 2008
Click here for the original article

From the article:

“By rejecting public financing, Obama can campaign nationwide, and he has promised a 50-state strategy. Under public financing, 90% of the country outside the swing states will be ignored. Without public financing, the Obama campaign has realized that setting up a campaign office in Idaho actually pays for itself from the donations of Idahoans who want to see a new kind of president. This is good for democracy, because it means more people across the country will be involved in the presidential process. And it creates the potential for Obama to win a landslide victory and help transform Congress and state offices. The public financing system would kill a 50-state strategy.

Under public funding, instead of campaigns largely controlling the campaign message, outside groups will determine the commercials seen by people (and therefore much of the media coverage about the campaign). Instead of small donors owning the campaigns, it will be the big donors who fund the national parties and “independent” 527 groups who determine the next president. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) found that $442 million was spent by 527 groups on federal elections in 2004. Compared to that sum, which may easily exceed half a billion dollars this year, the $84.1 million in public financing is a drop in the bucket. Because of this system, public financing is actually more likely to lead to the corruption of our political process. The candidate who wins will owe an obligation to the big 527 and party donors who made victory possible, rather than the millions of Americans who will fund the campaign without public financing…”

Click here for the full article

See also: What is a 527 Group?