I so missed being in the US during the election, especially for some really exciting races in Washington state. I did vote, though -- got my ballot through email!
This was by far my favorite comment about the whole election -- a tweet from Dana Bash at CNN:
@DanaBashCNN: Ladies and gentleman - 4.2 b spent for status quo government.
As the election highlights the large disagreements and polarization in America, I think this is one problem that we can all agree on. The amount of money spent on campaigning for the election this year was absurd. I don't know what exactly this figure is -- total spending only for the presidential election, for all the races combined, only for the federal ones, etc. -- but the point is that sooo much money was spent, and to what end? If this contributed to truly informing voters, I would be more ok with it. But I think the vast majority of this went to creating ads full of half-truths that helped to further polarize Americans and dumbed down complex issues into sound bites. I think there should be no campaign ads, so that people hopefully turn more to publicly funded debates, candidates' voting records, and their histories of achievements in office to evaluate them. On top of all that, the irony that we are spending billions of dollars on an election for which reducing the deficit has been called one of the most important issues is not lost on me. I wish there was a way to take all the money spent on these campaigns and use it for something worthwhile and lasting. Sigh.
This NYTimes page also has some interesting information on campaign funding: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance
This was by far my favorite comment about the whole election -- a tweet from Dana Bash at CNN:
@DanaBashCNN: Ladies and gentleman - 4.2 b spent for status quo government.
As the election highlights the large disagreements and polarization in America, I think this is one problem that we can all agree on. The amount of money spent on campaigning for the election this year was absurd. I don't know what exactly this figure is -- total spending only for the presidential election, for all the races combined, only for the federal ones, etc. -- but the point is that sooo much money was spent, and to what end? If this contributed to truly informing voters, I would be more ok with it. But I think the vast majority of this went to creating ads full of half-truths that helped to further polarize Americans and dumbed down complex issues into sound bites. I think there should be no campaign ads, so that people hopefully turn more to publicly funded debates, candidates' voting records, and their histories of achievements in office to evaluate them. On top of all that, the irony that we are spending billions of dollars on an election for which reducing the deficit has been called one of the most important issues is not lost on me. I wish there was a way to take all the money spent on these campaigns and use it for something worthwhile and lasting. Sigh.
This NYTimes page also has some interesting information on campaign funding: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance
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