Politics

The Obama campaign made political fundraising history in 2008, and now aims to break new ground in 2012 with his campaign's creative harnessing of the American public's seemingly boundless fondness for kitschy political souvenirs, from the $5 bumper sticker, to the $15 "golf divot tool," the shamrock-emblazoned $25 "O'Bama" pint glasses, and all the way up to the $450 "State Lapel Pin Collector's Set" — the most expensive item in stock — from the Obama campaign's vast and growing online store.

Reports about January's fundraising numbers, released on Feb. 20, have focused on two narratives: Mitt Romney's limited fundraising and high burn rate and the role that super PACs are playing in an increasingly contested Republican primary. Huffington Post decided to combine those narratives together to make a graphic of candidate and super PAC fundraising and spending in January.

President Barack Obama raised $29.1 million for his campaign and for the Democratic Party in January, a strong fundraising month that put him ahead of the pace he set in the last quarter of 2011.

The month’s haul raises Obama’s total combined fundraising for this election cycle to about $250 million. In the last three months of 2011, he averaged about $23 million a month.

Rick Santorum and his wife, Karen, gave 2.2 percent of their income to charity from 2007 to 2010, according to tax returns the candidate for the Republican presidential nomination released last night to Politico, a newspaper that covers politics.

The Santorums gave 1.8 percent of their $930,227 in total income to charity in 2010. In 2009, they donated 2.7 percent of their $1,127,266 total income.

The tax returns do not disclose the names of the organizations they supported.

Social fundraising platform Fundly released the latest metrics of the "Fundly Political Index" (FPI) — the first-ever index that measures the velocity of social fundraising activity across the social Web during the 2012 campaign cycle.

According to the Fundly Political Index, political campaigns' social fundraising velocity by the end of January 2012 had increased to 53 times higher than in the previous year. "Social fundraising" is defined as peer-to-peer fundraising and fundraising using social media as its main method of solicitation.

Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia’s third richest man, said he’ll give $17 billion of his $18 billion fortune to charity if he defeats Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and three other candidates to win the Russian presidency next month.

“I’ll sell everything, all my assets when I become president and donate almost all of the money to charity,” Prokhorov said during a talk show with fellow candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky that was broadcast on state-run television late.

U.S. presidential campaigns and political action committees, or PACs, filed financial reports on Tuesday that showed how much they had raised and spent as of Dec. 31.

The filings to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) also offered a snapshot of who donated how much to the "Super PACs," which operate independently from campaigns and can raise unlimited amounts from individuals, corporations and unions.

Social media was a game-changing technology that helped alter the course of the 2008 presidential election. In 2012, mobile payments could be the transformational technology, as millions of political supporters are given the ability to collect money on smartphones for candidates. On Monday, President Obama’s re-election campaign announced that it would immediately begin using Square, a mobile payments start-up company, with campaign staffers and some approved volunteers.

Mitt Romney’s campaign plans to announced a similar Republican-themed Square application that will allow campaign officials to collect donations on a smartphone.

The political committee representing House Democrats said it has raised more than $61 million last year, giving the group a stronger financial footing heading into the November election. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's fundraising blitz leaves it with $11.6 million in cash on hand, helping to extinguish the debt the group carried through late last year.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the Democrats' House counterpart, said it has about $15 million cash on hand.

President Obama said that he wants to ensure that his efforts to force the richest Americans to pay more taxes do not hurt people who make big donations to charity.

In his State of the Union address, Obama said those making more than $1 million should be required to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. But, he said in an accompanying document, “the administration will work to ensure that this rule is implemented in a way that is equitable, including not disadvantaging individuals who make large charitable contributions.”