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The Five Billion Dollar Election by Steve Sailer UPI, November 6, 2000 |
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This will be a record year for campaign spending, with expenses up dramatically compared to even the most recent elections. Total spending on federal, state, and local elections in 1999 and 2000 should reach at least $5 billion, according to Herbert E. Alexander of the University of Southern California. Alexander has been tabulating campaign spending since 1976, when expenditures were only $540 million. Five billion dollars is, of course, a huge amount of money. Yet, when compared to what's at stake, these marketing efforts might seem fairly limited to really big spenders such as auto companies or Mexico's former ruling party. According to Common Cause, a liberal lobbying organization, "soft money" contributions to the two parties, which use most of these funds to help their candidates, reached $393 million by October 18. This is 90% higher than for the same period in 1996. Funds available to Congressional candidates reached $861 million by the end of September, up 37% over just two years ago. A final total won't be available for some time. Even then, analysts will argue over how to value the non-cash efforts of unions and volunteers. For example, Rutgers labor economist Leo Troy estimates that it would cost the Democratic Party $300 million to buy the services that unions donate to them. Other observers think that's an overstatement. Single-issue pressure groups are spending as well. The National Rifle Association is paying $15 to $20 million for ads intended to benefit George W. Bush. Planned Parenthood spent $10 million and the Sierra Club $8 million on commercials aiding Al Gore. In September, actress Jane Fonda personally spent $11.7 million to bankroll Pro Choice Vote, a new organization dedicated to preserving abortion rights. Spending records are falling in a number of showcase races. In New Jersey, for example, the Democratic candidate for Senate is Wall Street mogul Jon Corzine. He is expected to about double the previous record of $29 million spent in 1994 by California Republican challenger Michael Huffington. Representative Huffington was a wealthy heir with an ambitious wife, political celebrity Arianna Huffington. Despite his largesse, Rep. Huffington still lost badly to Dianne Feinstein. He then quit politics, divorced Arianna, and announced he was gay. Corzine has held a modest lead throughout the campaign, but has been unable to put away Republican Bob Franks, whose entire budget is less than one tenth of his. Franks has in fact pulled closer by making an issue of Corzine's financial overkill. In the celebrated New York Senate race, both Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio may exceed Huffington's old mark. This race will set a record for a Senate campaign where neither candidate is spending his or her own personal fortune. Although the Republicans possess only a thin majority in the House of Representatives, most House seats are safely locked up by incumbents. Thus, some of the small number of seats that are up for grabs are seeing unprecedented spending. In the Congressional district northeast of downtown Los Angeles, Republican incumbent James Rogan and challenger Adam Schiff are expected to spend $12.5 million in hard and soft money. Local mail carriers are averaging two hours of overtime per day as total mail volume at a Glendale post office has soared 42% over this time last year. A final total on overall spending won't be available for some time. Even then, analysts will argue over how to value the non-cash efforts of unions and volunteers. For example, Rutgers labor economist Leo Troy estimates that it would cost the Democratic Party $300 million to buy the services that unions donate to them. Other observers think that's an overstatement. Single-issue pressure groups are splurging as well. The National Rifle Association says it is spending $15 to $20 million on ads intended to benefit George W. Bush. Planned Parenthood paid out $10 million and the Sierra Club $8 million on commercials aiding Al Gore. Five billion dollars is a lot of money, no question. But a billion just isn't the inconceivably large number that it used to be. So, how can we put this in perspective? First, the total campaign spending for the four years since the last Presidential election was in the range of $8 billion. So, that's $2 billion per year. That's three times what the federal government spends on breast cancer research annually. Still, from other points of view, election spending still seems moderate, despite the rapid growth. For example, two billion dollars buys a single B2 Stealth bomber. Or, $2 billion is what the 30 richest celebrities in the world earn each year, according to Forbes Magazine. Two billion dollars is ten dollars per year for each of the 200 million voting age Americans. In contrast, the automobile makers spend close to $10 billion on advertising annually, or $50 per American adult. (The automobile industry also spends billions on salesmen and other means of pushing their product that aren't counted in these advertising figures. However, huge amounts are also spent on lobbying elected officials, so this is a relatively fair comparison.) Americans complain far more about political commercials than car commercials. In contrast to quickly and crudely made election spots, automobile ads are always attractive and occasionally informative. And car ads seldom attack their rivals. When Ford runs into an embarrassing situation, Chevy doesn't rush out spots showing Ford Explorers flipping over and mangling their drivers. Campaign spending will continue to surge upwards because of the enormous leverage it can provide donors. For every dollar spent electing candidates to office, those government officials then get to decide how to oversee the spending of about $1,300 in government outlays. Consider Microsoft. In 1995, the software giant spent an estimated $700 million on marketing to launch Windows 95. Just to use the song "Start Me Up," Bill Gates paid the Rolling Stones $12 million. That alone is about as much as both sides are spending in the notoriously expensive Rogan-Schiff Congressional race. Microsoft, though, wasn't spending money on marketing to politicians. According to Common Cause, that year the company and its executives gave candidates and parties a grand total of $43,000. Microsoft employed a single Washington D.C. lobbyist. "I'm sorry we have to have a Washington presence," grumbled Gates. Not surprisingly, Microsoft found itself with few friends in Washington when it came under fire as a monopolist. Since 1997, Microsoft has spent $16 million on donations and lobbying in an attempt to play catch up. So far, it hasn't done them much good as Microsoft has been hammered by anti-trust rulings. A disturbing question arises. If Bill Gates had realized that the government was going to lop tens of billions of dollars off his personal net worth, how much would it have been logical for him to hand out to politicians and bureaucrats to forestall this? To see how far campaign spending could rise if unchecked, it's worth considering one notorious fundraising dinner hosted by Mexican President Carlos Salinas in 1993. To demonstrate its newfound commitment to democracy, his ruling party (which was defeated by Vincente Fox last summer) announced that that it would no longer pay for its political campaigns out of the government treasury. According to Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Andres Oppenheimer, President Salinas therefore simply invited to dinner the thirty moguls to whom he had sold off government-run monopolies. He extracted from these close personal friends pledges to pitch in to his party's campaign kitty 25,000,000 American dollars … apiece. At this single "Billionaire's Banquet," Salinas' PRI netted promises totaling three quarters of a billion U.S. dollars. At that time, Mexico's gross domestic product was about one eighteenth of America's GDP. So, in American terms, that would have been the equivalent of raising pledges for $13.5 billion in one night. In summary, there's a lot of room for growth left in election expenditures. Steve Sailer (www.iSteve.com) is a columnist for VDARE.com and the film critic for The American Conservative.
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