Tue 30 Oct 2007
Running for office is very expensive. The Virginia Politics Blog on washingtonpost.com reports on some of the information on candidate fundraising and expenditures in the upcoming Virginia elections. The raw numbers can be found on this very helpful website. The numbers in Chap’s race are incredible. From October 1 through October 24, Chap raised almost $324,000 (much of it coming from the Democratic Party of Virginia and Governor Kaine’s PAC, Moving Virginia Forward.) Chap also spent almost $300,000 during that 3 week period. Chap’s numbers, however, are dwarfed by Devolites Davis. She raised almost $400,000 from October 1-24, including almost $300,000 from her husband, Congressman Tom Davis. During that period, she spent almost $800,000! For one state senate seat! Philosophically, I’m opposed to spending limits in politics, but this is certainly an eye opener.
October 30th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
The reason that people spend so much money on politics is that politicians have so much power. Decrease that power and you will see election spending go down. Since that, alas, seems unlikely, you can expect election spending to continue to escalate.
October 30th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Don’t forget that Tom Davis is a spawn of that stolen purple hell known as AmHerst.
October 30th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Loweeel… it cannot be so! Your allegiance to an Eph superseeds your allegiance to the Rethuglicans?
I am with Loweeel on this one!
Beat Amherst! Send your money to a Democrat!
October 30th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I’m not really sure what a Rethuglican is… is it something like a Dhimmicrat? ;)
I’m merely noting a detail that Whitney left out of the story, not advocating for a particular side. I’m also not allowed to comment on politics for the term of my clerkship. Apparently, the 1st Amendment doesn’t apply to employees in the Judicial branch.