Campaigns and Potato Chips; or Some Causes and Consequences of Political Spending

Abstract

Before getting too upset about the initially eye-popping sums candidates spend to win elections, law professor (and current member of the Federal Election Commission) Bradley A. Smith advises us to put campaign costs in perspective. Americans, he notes, spent two or three times more on potato chips than on electing candidates in the mid-1990s. For Smith, the potato chip example is only one illustration that ought to settle fears about “obscene” and “runaway” campaign expenses. Perspective, however, is unlikely to move those convinced that big donors drive the political agenda. Convinced that money and politics is a far more nefarious combination than fat and salt, campaign finance reformers will no doubt carry on their search for new ways to limit spending and contributions, continuing the Progressive Era crusade to eliminate money's degrading influence on democracy.