This week’s column was posted early to the Creative Loafing site last night.
By this time tomorrow, America (we hope) will have elected a new president.
And the two main candidates (and their most dedicated boosters, the super PACs) will have spent well over a billion and a half dollars in their efforts to sway the 19 people in the country who hadn’t made up their minds who they were going to vote for while sitting at the family dinner table when they were 8.
A billion and a half dollars. It’s a conservative estimate.
It’s also 24,000 times the nation’s average annual household income. It’s five of the world’s most expensive private jets, the $300 million Airbus 380. It’s 100,000 new Volkswagen Jettas. Eight million train trips from Tampa to Chicago and back. Eighteen million tickets to see Aerosmith at the St. Pete Times Forum next month. One and a half billion bags of freakin’ ramen.
Spent by two men. Each of whom was trying to tell the world he would be better at balancing the country’s budget than the other. On a popularity contest.