12 September—When you consider that the most successful money-raisers and/or biggest spenders in, of, and for political campaigns often don’t win the elections, you wonder why virtually all political campaigns and the media these days make such a big deal of the big bucks political candidates are able to raise and/or spend.

It would appear that little bucks don’t count—in politics as in real life. At least little bucks don’t merit the same press coverage as big bucks. Except when they beat big bucks. And even then you don’t often read about David beating Goliath with a smaller campaign chest, just that David did it. Could that be because the media desperately need the advertising revenue from political campaigns and can’t afford to let the great unwashed infer that less is more?

Of course, there are the basically self-funded campaigns like the seven-to-lower-eight-figure ego trips of people like Connecticut’s Ned Lamont and Bob Stefanowski in 2018 and again this year—hopefully with better results. But that’s baby bucks, kid stuff, chicken feed.

Then you go to the big bucks thrown into unsuccessful campaigns. Ross Perot’s 60 million to not become POTUS in 1992, when that was a lot of money. Don’t forget Linda McMahon’s 100 million in two unsuccessful albeit well-intentioned campaigns to get into the U.S. Senate to represent Connecticut earlier in this century.

Then the really big bucks, like Meg Whitman’s roughly 150 million to lose to Jerry Brown for Flake State governor. And Tom Steyer’s 200 million to fail to win the Democrat POTUS nomination.

Ignoring Trump-Clinton and Biden-Trump, then, we come to the really really big bucks. So far nobody has topped Michael Bloomberg’s billion-dollar ego trip to not get the Democrat POTUS nomination in 2020. That was after he had spent over 100 million to get elected New York City mayor several years earlier—about $175 a vote.

But give Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos some time; they’re only in their fifties. Mark Zuckerberg is only in his thirties. And they all have colossal egos and the wherewithal to inflate them even more. Rich or poor, it’s nice to have money . . .