Danny Ketterman
AP Economics
Mrs. Straub
30 October 2014
The Cost of An Election
Election day is this week and we are all watching what political parties will come out on top in the national elections as well as here in Wisconsin in the heated race for Governor. As you may have noticed, there are many costs that go into the election. Political parties have offices to run operations out of, campaign busses for candidates to campaign in and of course commercials for their candidates on television. The cost of elections has risen greatly in the last decade. This is in part due to the partisan divide going on in the political system. In the past, candidates were more bipartisan thus many constituents, whether Democratic or Republican did not have a high preference for one candidate over another thus their incentive to give money was low. Nowadays with candidates becoming so partisan, almost all candidates are highly liked by half of the constituents and highly disliked by the other half. This shift has caused people to realize that the marginal benefit of their donation outweighs the marginal cost.
This partisan divide not only gives an incentive for everyday people to give money to candidates but also high income donors. Billionaire and former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg has pledged to give 50 million dollars to help promote gun control in the U.S. Another group, Koch Brothers Americans for Prosperity raised 400 million dollars during the 2012 election to give to various candidates. If this organization, run by brothers Charles and David Koch, was a political party in itself, it would be the third largest political party in the United States. (To learn more about how big donors can effect elections watch this short video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH7xfjbostk)
I have seen first hand how the problem of partisanship has affected the attitudes and thus spending habits of Americans. During the 2012 elections, I worked as a political intern, to take poll data over the phone, answer questions and set up rallies for candidates. You would think that these activities would promote awareness of the elections but I was often times surprised at how often people would get offended by a simple call or rally. Rallies are much different than they seem on T.V. For example signs are not made by people, they are made by staff to support the candidates, chants are not made by people, they are started by staff to drown out hecklers and the people you see behind the candidate on T.V. are picked by staff to show a variety of voters that support the candidate. All these things contribute to people spending money on elections to avoid their rival getting into office. If more partisanship continues, people will just keep giving more and more money even though half of the money will have been wasted anyway if that candidate loses.
Congressional approval is currently at one of the lowest points it has ever been at. If politicians continue to counteract each other and not get bills passed Americans will continue to argue and give larger amounts of money that is unneeded. If you think about it political parties are in themselves oligopolies. There are few parties that control almost all of the market and the barriers for other options to enter are fairly high. Oligopolies for some reason avoid government regulation but still get away with producing products or commercials in this case that go against allocative efficiency. Even though society wants a low quantity of commercias produced, these organizations produce them is vast numbers.So if you are sick of being bombarded by telivison commercials, stop giving money to candidates and other political organizations and a drop in the quantiy of this negative externality will occur.
"The Influence of Super PACs on the 2012 Elections." YouTube. Brookings Institution, 9 Mar. 2012. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
"The Money Behind the Elections." Opensecrets RSS. The Center for Responsive Politics. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
Peters, Jeremy. "Bloomberg Plans a $50 Million Challenge to the N.R.A." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Apr. 2014. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
Robbins, Denise. "Myths And Facts About The Koch Brothers." Media Matters for America. Media Matters for America, 27 Aug. 2014. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
I think this is a very good article because, You have so much detail and put so much into the paper you wrote. It has a lot of detail and it could impact the Economy on a good note or a bad note. The economy is effected by who wins the election and the governor does what he wants to do so this effects the economy in many ways.
ReplyDeleteDanny,
ReplyDeleteI thought you provided a lot of interesting insight as to how an election can be related to economics. Some of the things you discovered about rallies in particular as you were working at the polls were very eye opening. I agree that the marginal benefit of voting really does the outweigh the marginal cost because even if people are stressed enough to make it on election day, there are absentee ballets that can be submitted and being busy really isn't an excuse to not vote. So the opportunity cost really isn't significant because voting doesn't take much time.
I actually just voted this past Tuesday. so reading this article was actually very interesting to me. I never realized that people standing behind the candidate on tv are selectively picked by staff, chants are made up by staff, and etc. I honestly think that the negative externality of the numerous, repetitive candidate commercials are SO annoying and aren’t even necessary. Vote for the person that you agree with his views on situations and concerns in society.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much each candidate spends out of their own pocket on their candidacy, and what the most some people spend on a candidacy that isn't guaranteed. I also didn't realize how scripted political rallies are, so that the people there are meant to make the candidate as attractive as possible. I don't know if I would characterize a political party as an oligopoly, but there are definitely barriers to entry in terms of people's allegiance to other parties.
ReplyDeleteMany of us actively think about how politics affect economics with different policies and budgets and such, but it is interesting to see the economics of politics for once. It is clear that there has been a large rise in the number of attack ads that are not only on T.V. but also on the internet and other media. I would like to raise the question that, if the number of ads continues to rise, will there be a point at which we become desensitized to them, making millions of dollars spent worthless? Also, I would be curious to see a graph that compares the amount of money given by the extremely wealthy and the amount donated to various candidates via the middle class. Could the political preference of America's elite drastically change the outcome, simply from donating large amounts of money?
ReplyDeleteDo to the fact I just turned 18 this year and got to vote, I have to say the process of very . . . underwhelming, and truth be told I didn't really want to vote! And, while I must say I am un-surprised by the amount of money being thrown around during the election, (I mean the commercials must be huge piles just be thrown down a drain), I do wonder, why the money is never constructively spent by the candidates. Say they chose a positive path by building a playground or daycare, or even a park for people of a city that would be better in the eyes of the voter right? Yet people continue to spend money on needless things like thousands of T.V. commercials that only serve to annoy people three months before the election date, cause an even worse negative externality, making people get so mad that they don't want to vote anymore thus giving up there right to make a choice for their state/country.
ReplyDeleteDanny, I agree with you and your stance against how much money goes into the two dominant political parties. The economic effect is often not looked at and how commercialized political campaigns have become and how society’s view on politics has become extremely superficial with partisans only voting for their party simply because it is their party. The whole process is biased, which presents the question what can be done to make political campaigns less superficial? Because if a solution if found it could not only help the country, economically, but also socially and politically.
ReplyDeleteDanny, it is really cool that you had first-hand experience at the elections to see what really goes on. I never knew how strategically planned out the rallies actually are, although it didn’t surprise me. In my opinion, considering all that is put into the elections, it is a huge risk to put so much money into a campaign for the losing candidate. That being said, the marginal cost of contributing to a campaign must be pretty high, although, the marginal benefits of winning definitely exceed the costs. Also, I thought it was funny that you mentioned the negative externality of the political advertisements. At one point, I was watching TV and for about five minutes straight I saw nothing but campaign commercials.
ReplyDeleteI think calling political parties oligopolies is pretty fitting, for more reasons than money. I voted for the first time this year, so I asked my mom about some of the candidates that I was on the fence about, and she told me an unspoken rule of voting is that, in a race that matters, you don't for third parties, because they are very unlikely to win, and all you do by voting for a third party is siphon votes away from the other candidate you would have voted for, making it more likely that the person you DIDN'T want will win the election. So there’s a pretty significant barrier to third parties candidates when it comes to actually getting votes (since not enough people who would vote for them have faith that they would win), which is why politics are dominated by only two parties when there are actually tons of parties out there. Sounds like the definition of an oligopoly to me.
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