January 17, 2010 11:56 PM UTC

What Is Some Pols Readers' Fascination With Campaign Cash?

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• by: donscottknox

Admittedly, I am a journalist and a non-campaign person. But what’s some Pols readers’ fascination with how much money is being raised by candidates? Most of the funds raised by candidates only matter if you’re looking for a job with one of the campaigns, IMHO. Is that what’s going on here? Are you all looking for jobs? (Hint: The private sector pays A LOT more.) Surely a “base” of money is required to run a credible campaign: establish an office, create ads, coordinate events, pay for polls and phone banks. But after that, does money matter? History, and economic research, says NO.

From “Freakonomics”

Here’s the surprise: 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 that same 1 percent.

More after the jump.

What really matters for a political candidate is not how much you spend; what matters is who you are.

Carrying that point forward …

Some politicians are inherently attractive to voters and others simply aren’t, and no amount of money can do much about it. (Messrs. Dean, Forbes, Huffington, and Golisano already know this, of course.)

Read the whole analysis here: http://www.mfw.us/freakonomics…

So the bottom line is that Jared Polis, while rich, probably would have won his CD-2 race anyway. (I’m not saying that Joan Fitz-Gerald is unlikeable, but the voters liked Polis a little bit more.) Romanoff, while behind in fund-raising, is likeable enough in Denver that he won four straight House elections and was elected by peers to be House Speaker. Michael Bennet’s likeability is the true unknown: He’s never run for office, unless you consider his selection by the smallish Denver school board and his election by Bill Ritter in the “Election of One.” By contrast, John Hickenlooper is hugely likeable. He’s won two elections on his own and a number of bond elections. Plus, he’s an ex-brew-pub owner. A lot of people like beer. (I can’t get enough of the stuff.)

I’ll post about GOP likeability later.

Does money matter? Not to the level I’ve seen on the Pols Website. But it matters some. Adam Sandler demonstrated this in the movie The Wedding Singer: http://www.entertonement.com/c…

Mr. Simms (Kevin Nealon): “Do you have any experience?”

Robbie (Adam Sandler): “No sir, I have no experience, but I’m a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I’d like to put more in that jar. That’s where you come in.”