“The amount of money spent by the candidates hardly matters at all. A winning candidate can cut his spending in half and lose only 1 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, a losing candidate who doubles his spending can expect to shift the vote in his favor by only the same 1 percent. What really matters for a political candidate is not how much you spend; what matters is who you are.”
They went on to debunk another accepted myth of campaign finance.
“And what about the other half of the election truism—that the amount of money spent on campaign finance is obscenely huge? In a typical election period ... about $1 billion is spent per year—which sounds like a lot of money, unless you care to measure it against something seemingly less important than democratic elections.
“It is the same amount, for instance, that Americans spend each year on chewing gum.”
“It is the same amount, for instance, that Americans spend each year on chewing gum.”
I’ve read through half of this book in an evening, and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in a refreshing approach to economics. The book doesn’t focus on GDP and stock prices but instead on crack dealers, school teachers, online dating sites, and sumo wrestlers.
