This may be the wrong time of the year to be thinking about politics, but since it affects our lives in so many different ways, it is hard to ignore.
And, I'm sure the retail outlets in America would prefer we celebrate the holiday season by spending, not being depressed by how our government officials allow the effect of money to decide who runs our nation.
A couple of weeks ago, I worked on an article about the two major political offices that were being contested in Florida. (It was too depressing and never completed.) One office was a United States Senate seat, the other the position of Florida's governor. These were two highly contested political races and were made more visible nationally by the television news coverage. The focus was primarily on the outcome's impact on control of the Unites States Senate if won by the Republican versus the loss of a vote in the Senate for the Democrats if they failed to win.
In the previous article, I had mentioned that the outcome of the election for the Senate seat was reported as being very close and the winner would probably have less than a 1 percent margin of victory. A term-limited current Florida governor was opposing an incumbent Democrat for the Senate and his previously held position as governor was opened and it, too, was expected to be a closely contested race. However, it was not as important to the nation as the potential outcome of the Senate election.
The election was close, as predicted. The term-limited governor, a Republican, won with a victory margin of about 0.15 percent. For the benefit of us non-political students, that margin is a 0.0015 or almost a tie on a vote total of over 8 million ballots. That is very close and it is safe to say that "generally" half of Florida's voters favored the "other guy."
The governor's race got lost in the closeness of the Senate vote count for all practical purposes. Actually, the Republican won -- I think. All the emphasis focused on the Senate race and how much money was spent on the campaigns. The preliminary figures were frightening enough. I never did go back to get the final dollar numbers for either political party nor did I research the actual source of funds for each of the two parties. The body can only stand so much shock before it rebels.
What I did find was enough to take the toys out of Santa's sleigh and shut off Rudolph's brightly lit nose. As of Oct. 17, a couple of weeks before the election, the incumbent Democrat Senator Bill Nelson had raised $28 million and spent $25 million. The former governor and eventual winner had raised over $68.6 million and had spent over $66 million. Please note: The Republican had spent over twice as much as the Democrat -- in President Donald's Trump's adopted state of Florida, no less. The final figure for both parties in this election could have exceeded $100 million‚ for only a little more than 8 million votes. That is about $12 per vote.
When we read about the Mueller investigation delving into the role of President's former campaign manager -- Paul Manafort -- and Trump's personal attorney -- Michael Cohen -- it is impossible not to connect the impact of political power and money. Access to the people in powerful positions is very expensive and important as we have seen in the reports of the investigations. apparently a few million dollars in a state's political contest is nothing compared to the potential rewards if you are "connected."
As I read about our "average American" (and that could be any of us or all of us) spending more on the celebration of the holiday season and seeing reports of how much "revolving credit" increases at this time of year, I have trouble not being concerned about the direction of our nation. It looks like too much is spent on political activities and too little put into the paychecks of the average American consumer. All retail outlets want to sell more over the holidays, but for those still paying off last year's expenses on their credit cards, it may not be too good for that "average American" consumer. We all want Santa's efforts to fill every Christmas stocking to be a success, but hopefully the costs won't overflow into next year's unpaid credit card bills.
Our nation's budget is somewhere around $4.4 trillion and our debt grows almost as fast as the economy. If political campaign's expenses are any indication, it might be a merry Christmas for politicians in Washington and not so merry for the majority of the population not politically connected. Some of the politically connected businesses in Florida may have benefit from the spending, but will it impact Santa's elves?
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Editor's note: Leo Lynch, an award-winning columnist, is a native of Benton County and has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. The opinions expressed are those of the author. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace.
Editorial on 12/12/2018