Obama Campaign: Juggernaut or Money Pit?

Obama’s Campaign: Juggernaut or Money Pit?

“$135 million.” -- The outlays so far by President Obama’s re-election campaign, according to an Associated Press analysis -- $3 million more than the entire Republican field combined.

Why do the president and first lady spend so much time raising money? Because they have a lot of mouths to feed.

With already more than 500 paid staffers and campaign offices in 45 states, Barack Obama is on his way to building what would be the largest political operation in American history. But that also means it will be the most expensive.

As the first quarter of the year draws to a close, the Obamas have been fanning out to raise as much money as possible to avoid an upside-down balance sheet. He’s passing the hat today in Maine and Vermont, and she’s wooing donors in San Francisco. Not exactly purple states.

Lots of fundraising is great, but only if it’s staying ahead of expenditures. The AP reports that Obama has massive overhead: $29.5 million on operations alone in the first two months of the year, including $6.3 million in payroll and $435,000 on rent and utilities.

The Obama strategy is clearly to build a war machine so massive that likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney will never be able to catch up.

Romney is finally sealing the deal in the Republican race with endorsements from conservative leaders like Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio. But Obama has taken the time Republicans spent in a fight between Romney and his remaining rivals to pile up $84.7 million in cash by the end of February.

But even such a seemingly enormous cash advantage is worth little if Obama is burning through his funds at such a blinding rate. While the campaign will not have to repeat the startup costs associated with buying computers and phones, the real cost of the campaign, hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign ads, haven’t yet begun.