I've seen all the stories about big donors getting big transition roles, about the ethical standards the Obama transition team has established limiting donations, etc., etc.  But what do they need all that money for in the first place?

Okay, I can understand that there's staff to pay, and the cost of things like transportation, accomodations, rent and whatnot, in getting offices set up and getting people together for meetings and interviews and everything.  But it sounds like they're pulling in a ton of cash from all these donations.  And it's not as if they have the more obvious campaign expenses such as television commercials and field offices to worry about any longer.

So what the hell do they need so much money for? Youtube addresses and change.gov can't cost that much.