US candidates buck spending trend
Updated on 30 October 2008
The US economy is shrinking into recession, but Barack Obama has still got millions to spend on his election campaign.
The biggest spending spree in American history is officially over as the economy shrunk by 0.3 per cent in the last quarter.
Barack Obama told supporters in Florida this afternoon the country was in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
But unlike the rest of America's consumers, he has still got millions to spend. With his campaign finances dwarfing his rival John McCain's, he broadcast an unprecedented 30-minute campaign advert across America's prime time networks last night.
Half an hour of blanket prime time television does not come cheap, but Barack Obama can easily afford it. The Obama campaign has broken fundraising records, pulling in $660m. John McCain, limited by public financing rules, has raised less than half that at just $292m.
