A Fistful of Campaign Dollars

I stumbled on this website, which compares (rather sarcastically) the total amount spent on the 2010 elections with what the money could have bought for the United States, including almost 4 million monthly mortgages, 1.3 billion school lunches, 12.2 million unemployment checks, a 248-year contract with Lebron James, and I speculate, though it's not on the list, the country of Zimbabwe.

The introduction to the list states: "Since all of them insist they’re for helping average American families, the National Journal staff was curious to know how else they might have spent all that money on our behalf. How would Americans feel if, instead of attack ads, slick mailers, and robocalls, our politicians lavished us with [the following]."

It mentions the deep recession the United States is in, and the point is clear: what else could we spend money on, instead of getting politicians elected or re-elected? Especially since over half of them lose and that money goes to naught, it seems disturbingly easy to burn cash. A lot of a candidates funding will come from rent-seeking companies, special interest groups, and individuals, and we've seen how the money raised by rent seekers can far exceed the value of the rent sought, leading to pure waste. In a struggling economy, maybe that money could have purchased iPads or aided in unemployment benefits instead of Tom Periello's offensively terrible commercials or Robert Hurt's back to back TV spots for the exact same advertisement laden with blatant hypocrisy.*

Candidates for office are vote-seekers, and they want to maximize dollars to spread their name, but it just seems an unfathomable amount of money to spend for people who claim to represent the middle-class working man.

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