Jon Corzine Fails to Buy New Jersey Election

Alright, it’s just about time to permanently retire the trope that lots of campaign spending buys elections, and, thus, scrap all ill-conceived and undemocratic campaign finance laws.  In politics, money isn’t everything; just ask soon to be former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine:

Corzine, a former Wall Street executive, has spent $23.6 million on the general election, compared to Republican Chris Christie’s $8.8 million and independent Chris Daggett’s $1.2 million, according to the state Election Law Enforcement Commission.

Corzine donated or loaned his general election campaign $22.6 million of its $24.1 million, writing checks to cover TV ads, several pollsters and a $15,000 hall rental for President Obama’s visit to Fairleigh Dickinson University.

If political campaigns were all about accounting, Mitt Romney would have been battling Obama last year, Brian Mulroney would have become Prime Minister a decade earlier than he did, California and Maine would have gay marriage, the Charlottetown Accord would have passed, and it might have been Forbes v. Bradley instead of Bush v. Gore in 2000.

Sure, one can spend more money and win more votes; the Obama-McCain election demonstrates that.  But could it be that the reason that Obama was able to raise far more funds than McCain is the reason he won more votes: he was insanely popular?

In The Ottawa Citizen years ago, John Robson wrote on this very topic.  He argued that no matter how much money you spent, you couldn’t convince people to eat a sludge sandwich (sorry, no link).  Voters in New Jersey know sludge when they see it, and, thus, voted against Jon Corzine.

No matter how much he spent.