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The heartening news is that you can’t buy the White House; you can’t overwhelm the Congress with these super PAC dollars.
David Axelrod, in an interview with Business Insider.
Axelrod also said,"If I were one of those billionaires ... I'd be wanting to talk to someone and asking where my refund is, because they didn’t get much for their money."
This is a stat we almost wish we hadn't found.
Did all that super PAC spending make a difference? We're keeping score on 21 popular races here.
(Sources: CPI, HHS.gov)
The Center for Responsive Politics estimates the 2012 election will cost $6 billion -- a spending record that tops 2008's total by more than $700 million. That massive price tag got us thinking (again): What else could we buy with $6 billion?
A few ideas:
Full entry to Yellowstone, America's oldest national park, for every American (assuming two people per vehicle). And that's not all: every single American would also be able to afford a souvenir shot glass from the gift shop!
Four years and board at Harvard University for every resident of Flint, Michigan.
A brand new house (valued at $118,000) for every resident in Hoboken, NJ. The homes of many residents were devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
A brand-new 21.5 inch iMac for every teacher in the U.S.
165,722 Nissan Leafs (2012 model), or 143,867 H3 Hummers (2010 model). Because Americans enjoy variety, right?
215 seasons of NBA's most expensive basketball player, Kobe Bryant (at a current, average annual salary of $27.8 million).
120 million high-end disco balls(!!).
When xkcd first published "Money", the mother of all infographics, nearly a year ago, Election 2012 was but a glimmer on the horizon.
(You can tell just how long ago that was by the mere $188.3 million that had been raised by presidential candidates at the time, now about $1.9 billion has been spent!)
Now that we know the election could cost as much as $6 billion, we're looking at this epic infographic in a very different way. For instance, based on "Money", here are some other interesting things that cost $6 billion:
Donald Trump's net worth, doubled (plus $600 million).
Annual gov't subsidy for ethanol production (plus $1 billion).
Nearly half the worth of all apparel produced in the U.S. in a year (Total: $12.05 billion).
Just over 324 years of funding for Wikipedia.
All the tea in China (plus $1.79 billion).
Today, in contradictory campaign finance news...
This tidbit from the Public Campaign Action Fund has us scratching our heads, so to speak:
Earlier this year, Citadel Investment Group’s Ken Griffin was asked by a reporter for the Chicago Tribune if the “ultrawealthy have an inordinate or inappropriate influence on the political process.” He responded, “I think they actually have an insufficient influence.”
But it turns out, Griffin (who, for the record, is a billionaire) has donated at least $2,662,000 this election cycle. After doing the math, PCAF found that figure equals the median annual income (less than $52,000) for 50 American families.
OpenSecrets Blog: Outside groups are outspending House candidates in 26 races this election cycle.
During the last month, the deluge of political advertising in Ohio has been so intense -- and continuous -- that Bloomberg News calculated it would take 80 days of non-stop viewing to view all of the more than 58,000 presidential campaign ads that have flooded the airwaves in the state.
And we just don't think that it seems that far-fetched to imagine an entire populace going apocalypse-style insane under that sort of duress.
