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Money Money Money Money Money

By on January 12, 2012

A lot of big American bucks are being spent on the primary elections for President this year. Even more will be spent once the two parties formally nominate their chosen standard bearers at summer’s end. In Carolina where the voting takes place January 21, pro-Gingrich PACs have already spent $1.6 million dollars. Romney will be pouring $2.3 million into their own TV PAC ads.

Meanwhile the Obama people have announced that they raised 68 million dollars for campaign coffers in the fourth quarter of 2011. That buys a lot of aspirin and bandages. And raising it takes too much of the candidate’s or office-holder’s time and energy, time that should be spent on governing and spelling out one’s position on major issues.

I think of the homely campaigns back in Great Britain where the process lasts a matter of weeks and the local residents get to ask their representatives substantive questions directly on topics they genuinely care about, rather than getting bombarded with a lot of razzle dazzle that signifies nothing.

That’s not to say the Brits are immune from the kind of “Romney’s a job creator” – “Romney’s a corporate raider” baloney currently on display. But the last general election cost ₤ 80 million, a lot but far less than $5.3 billion dollars spent on the 2008 national elections here in the US. What will be the price tag this time around on a process that largely began the day after the elections in 2008, with results the Republicans never seem to have fully accepted.

Do we get to know a lot more about our candidates and the issues by the time the election is over in the US than in Britain? You judge. Are Americans sick to death of the election process by the time it is over? I think they might be.

In the end this country will have very little residual value to show from all the buttons and streamers and TV spots and billions of dollars spent on this election. Could not some of this money be better spent elsewhere on a shorter process? And would it not make the average American TV watcher much happier if it were.

Tom Godfrey

 

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