Where does all that campaign money go?

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California's effect
“A huge percentage of the people in California vote early,” Smith said. “The ballots get mailed out 20 days beforehand. Therefore, while you’re fighting it out in Iowa and New Hampshire, you better be on television in California because of the people who get early ballots; a huge percentage of them vote as soon as they get the ballot and turn it back in the same day. Before you even know what’s going to happen in Iowa and New Hampshire, you’ve got to go up on television in California, which is not an inexpensive place to be on television.”

A 30-second TV ad on the 6 p.m. local news in an Iowa media market such as Waterloo will cost between $400 and $1,200. But to run the same ad on the local news in Los Angeles will cost about $4,000, according to campaign consultants and TV ad directors.

Among Kerry’s $1.9 million in spending for the first quarter of ‘03 was $22,572 in salary for Iowa field director John Norris, who proved to be well worth it in the end.

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Once Kerry won the Iowa caucuses, his momentum carried him to victory on the night of Jan. 27, when he won the New Hampshire primary. His rivals never really threatened his lead after that.

Trippi said 2008 will be different. “This isn’t anymore about Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada.” At this point Clinton, Obama and Edwards probably have enough money to compete in those three states, he said.

“What they’re really doing is building up the pool of funds so that if you’re Hillary Clinton and Obama beats you in Iowa, you can still keep going. If Hillary wins Iowa and New Hampshire, Obama has enough money to keep the fight going the whole way.”

“Enough” means between $50 million and $100 million for each candidate, Trippi said.

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