Excel Story

Anna Iskandarian
April 15, 2008
Excel Homework
Working with candidates and money for campaigns can be really tricky and complicated and so using the date that we received, I have created a basis for a story covering campaigns and especially donations for advertising. Television advertising donations alone cost $26,312,093; that is $26 Million dollars just for tv advertising! I know this isn’t hard hitting news because everyone knows this, but I think it can be a fascinating thing to compare the candidates that received the most money for tv advertising and how successful they were in the long run compared to the candidates that spent the most money on yard signs. Peterson having spent about $11 Million will have a significantly different rate of success compared to say, Smith who spent $1.7 Million. My guess is that just looking at the numbers, Peterson’s chances of a successful campaign will be a lot higher than others’.
Another important story idea that I think can be expanded is where the money for the campaigns is coming from. Looking at the broad picture, Save Our Planet donated about $20 million dollars and the Teachers Union with $12 million. First, for the teachers Union, where is this money coming from and their median donation being $22,000, how do the politician’s campaign promises for education affect the donations. For my story, this is the angle I would take- find a teacher’s union that had donated to let’s say McDonald, and find out where their money is coming from and why they are supporting these politicians with yard signs and street posters. Same for the reasons of education policies of candidates, another interesting area would be the environmental stand that politicians are taking. It would be a good question to ask, whether politicians tend to lean a certain way on an issue to receive more money because the data shows that the top eight largest contributions were made by Save the Planet, with the highest being $1 million for television advertising for Adams. It would be a good idea to look at Adams’ campaign and figure out where he stands on the environment, recycling programs, and even global warming. If there is an obvious connection to his campaign stand and the people that are donating, a good investigator, let’s say like me, would spend time with Adams and see if environmental issues is really something that he is leading to or if it is a tactic to get money from a rich Save the Planet Organization. Then if there is a connection, I would go to Save the Planet and talk to them, asking them where they get their money from and how they can afford $1million dollars on one candidate for one medium. Once that is answered, I would ask them why. Why him? Why that much money? Why spend money on advertising when it can go to actually saving the planet? Those kinds of why question.