The Year-End reports for the various PACs are now in. Here are the raw numbers for the Free and Strong America PAC (Romney), Sarah PAC (Palin), Huck PAC (Huckabee), and the Freedom First PAC (Pawlenty):

	FnSA-PAC	Huck-PAC	Sarah-PAC	FF-PAC
Cash On Hand Start of 2009	$338K	$80K	$0K	$0K
Cash On Hand End of 2009	$1125K	$192K	$928K	$884K
Contributions > $200	$2022K	$223K	$756K	$1141K
Contributions <= $200	$849K	$590K	$1367K	$94K
Contributions from other PACs	$42K	$10K	$8K	$45K
Total Contributions:	$2870K	$813K	$2131K	$1280K
Other Income	$695K	$11K	$1K	$0K
Total Income	$3565K	$824K	$2132K	$1280K
Operating Expenses:	$2669K	$668K	$1142K	$380K
Donations to Others:	$58K	$20K	$46K	$17K
Other Expenses:	$51K	$24K	$16K	$0K
Total Expenses:	$2,778K	$712K	$1204K	$396K

First, a few comments:

• Only FnSA-PAC and Huck-PAC were in existence the entire year of 2009. Sarah-PAC was in operation for eleven months and FF-PAC only for the last three.
• The first three months of a PAC’s existence are often “Barn Burners”.  Their numbers usually settle down after that first quarter.
• The “<=$200″ and “>$200″ categories are often misunderstood.  The numbers reflect the total contributed by that person for the entire year. So for example if one supporter donates $20 every month to a PAC, they would end up donating $240 for the entire year and thus would be classed in the ‘>$200′ catagory even though they had made twelve sub-$200 donations.

Here are the Contributions per Month numbers:

FnSA-PAC	Huck-PAC	Sarah-PAC	FF-PAC
$239K	$68K	$194K	$427K

As you can see, Pawlenty did far and away the best here.  Since this consists entirely of the FF-PAC’s first quarter year of existence, it is difficult to compare apples to apples with the rest of them.  The numbers next year will give us a better idea on how well he is doing in relationship to the others.  In the meantime, Romney led the rest with Palin close behind with about 80% of his total.  Huckabee is far back with only about 16% of Pawlenty’s, 28% of Romney’s, and 35% of Palin’s.

Here are the percentage of $200 or less donations for each candidate:

FnSA-PAC	Huck-PAC	Sarah-PAC	FF-PAC
30%	73%	64%	8%

Huckabee  received the greatest portion of his donations from small donations — nearly 3 out every 4 dollars he took in came from this catagory.  He was followed closely by Palin — nearly 2 out of three dollars.  Romney had one out of three dollars of donations that came from this source.  Pawlenty had less than one in ten.

As with all percentages, it is important to remember the raw numbers here.  For instance, even though Huckabee’s percentage was more than double that of Romney’s, he in actuality took in considerably less money from “sub-$200″ contributors than Romney.

Here are the percentages of “Donations to Others” to “Total Contributions Received”:

FnSA-PAC	Huck-PAC	Sarah-PAC	FF-PAC
2.00%	2.14%	2.13%	1.31%

As can be seen, Romney, Huckabee, and Palin are all well within the same ballpark while Pawlenty lags behind.  This is understandable since they are just getting started.

All PAC s have similar numbers.  The sad fact of the matter is they are all extremely inefficient at getting your money into the hands of outside people and causes the PAC supports.  They exist primarily to promote the cause of the PAC’s controller.  If you want money to get to a particular candidate, it is far better to contribute directly to his campaign or his PAC than to an outside PAC.  Less than a penny of your donation dollar will make it to him from the outside PAC.

I am looking forward to July of next year.  That is when the mid-year numbers will come out.  All PACs must file them mid-year reports.  They will all have been in existence for more than three months.  That means those numbers will be apples to apples — no caveats.