Sunday, December 6, 2009

Close to buying an election - the value of a vote?

The campaign spending results are in for the New Jersey Gubernatorial race. The numbers show the value of a vote. If a candidate is unpopular enough even spending gobs of money is not enough to buy an election – but it is pretty close. New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine lost his re-election bid by about 4% of the vote.

Here is how much the three major candidates spent in the race, and the amount of money they spent per vote they received:
Governor Jon Corzine $27,000,000 - $25.60/vote
Governor-elect Chris Christie $11,400,000 - $9.88/vote
Independent Chris Daggett $1,600,000 - $11.70/vote

Governor Corzine’s big spending brought him close to winning re-election but even spending more money than his competitors combine did not give him the win. Does these stats show a need for campaign finance reform, or does it just show Corzine was as incompetent running an elections as voters believed he was in running the state?

On a side note, the Associate Press is reporting that Governor Corzine spent $131,000,000 of his own money running for office since 2000. Governor Corzine has run for Governor twice, and U.S. Senate once.

SOURCE:

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