There were a number of competitive Senate races last year, Democrats ended up shocking Republicans in the Great Lakes and Sunbelt, while Republicans were able to do fairly well in the Midwest. Independent experts have described this midterm cycle as \u201cthe most expensive in history\u201d with over $5 billion dollars spent on organizing and ads. We\u2019ve grown accustomed to high-dollar spending in competitive races, but what\u2019s happening in a state like Wyoming which hasn\u2019t historically been competitive? No Democratic presidential candidate has carried Wyoming since 1964, so one might imagine that the state would be immune to the gratuitous levels of spending that we\u2019ve seen in Missouri. Yet, incumbent senator John Barrasso raised over $7 million dollars and spent over $5 million on his race which had not even the slightest chance of being competitive.<\/p>\n
Barrasso\u2019s race isn\u2019t an outlier, there are a number of noncompetitive races where favored candidates spent ungodly amounts of money. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D) of Hawaii has spent over $3 million, Mitt Romney (R) of Utah has spent nearly $5 million, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) of Massachusetts spent an eye popping $20.4 million.\u00a0 There\u2019s simply an unconscionable amount of money in politics and the tactics campaigns have been using to fundraise border on the ridiculous (Something Arthur Lieber has written about at length here <\/a>and here<\/a>). The numbers get even more extreme when we look into the actually competitive<\/em> races. In Texas, Beto O\u2019Rourke spent $60 million to lose to Sen. Ted Cruz (R). In Missouri, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) spent $33 million to lose to Josh Hawley. In Florida, Rick Scott had to spend $66 million to barely beat Sen. Bill Nelson (D).<\/p>\n Which poses an interesting question…why the hell are we spending so much money on campaigns and was it always like this? The answer to the first question isn\u2019t overly complicated. In politics there aren\u2019t a whole lot of quantitative measurements, metrics that have numbers and not only measure success but can be understood by voters. Of course, we have poll numbers, but voters already follow those and campaigns have essentially no control over the polls. So, when there aren\u2019t any meaningful things to measure, you begin to measure things that were previously meaningless that you\u2019ve decided to assign meaning to; money. A negative consequence of our decision to use money to measure success means that we\u2019ve prioritized fundraising numbers over important things that are hard to quantify like policy positions or authenticity. Our present situation is reminiscent of Vietnam when the military began tracking \u201cbody counts\u201d to produce some misleading characterization about American strength throughout the war. We\u2019re at the point that voters ask candidates \u201chow much money have you raised\u201d and we have countdown clocks to await the end of quarter fundraising numbers, the party apparatuses are pushing candidates harder and harder to beg for money and the candidates oblige because the donor-industrial complex demands that they do.<\/p>\n Now as to the question of is this the way it has always been, the answer is no. Believe it or not, there was once a time where the media didn\u2019t report on campaign contributions and knowing your constituents was enough to get re-elected. Before there was Citizens United or CNN or ActBlue or email, there was Bill Proxmire.<\/p>\n Sen. William Proxmire was the longest serving senator from Wisconsin, in office from 1957 until 1989, succeeding Ted Cruz lookalike <\/a>and anti-communist crusader Joseph McCarthy. Proxmire did not do the rubber chicken circuit<\/a> nor did he send out solicitations for campaign donations in his last two campaigns. In fact, Proxmire returned campaign donations and typically only spent $200 on each of his campaigns and that money was earmarked for postage to return donations. Proxmire wasn\u2019t necessarily the exception, many of his contemporaries didn\u2019t spend time dialing for dollars. Until 1976 when the Supreme Court decided Buckley v. Valeo<\/em> there were very few enforced rules on spending and fundraising which allowed for some obviously unethical activities, namely the slush fund<\/a> utilized by the Committee to Re-elect the President during Watergate. However most established politicians like Birch Bayh in Indiana or Frank Church in Idaho simply went about the business of legislating with the assumption that doing their jobs well would be enough. Which was true to an extent, from 1970 until 1990 incumbent senators could expect to outperform the partisanship of their state somewhere between 11 to 22 points<\/a> compared to less than 3 points in 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n Proxmire in the elections where he eschewed campaign donations was still re-elected by large margins, 29 points in 1982 and 46 points in 1976. This is more impressive when one remembers that Proxmire was a Democrat and Wisconsin supported Republican Presidential Candidates in every election from 1952 through 1984 with the exception of a narrow Carter victory in 1976 and LBJ\u2019s landslide in 1964. Of course, partisanship was not as high nor were the parties as fractured 40 years ago as they are today, however what Proxmire figured out then could still be true today and that is if you prioritize your principles over getting re-elected that can endear you to voters. Proxmire was famous for his monthly \u201cGolden Fleece Awards\u201d where he listed what he believed to be a particularly jarring use of government money like thousands of dollars spent to study why people fall in love or a study by the army on how to purchase Worcester sauce. But perhaps even more important than principle is authenticity and voters will forgive you for being wrong so long as you give it to them straight. Which is important because Proxmire was not always on the side of progress (but perhaps neither were the people of Wisconsin), he was opposed to busing, spending on public works projects that he deemed \u201cfrivolous\u201d, and he supported the Vietnam War way longer than was politically necessary.<\/p>\n Proxmire was visible around Wisconsin, he visited VFW halls, he marched in parades, and he was interviewed by local papers. It\u2019s hard to imagine this now but there was a time when our members of Congress simply went to Washington but were not of Washington. Proxmire was of course a larger figure in his day, not towering like Robert Byrd or Bob Dole, but big nonetheless and that certainly helps when running for re-election. But being well known isn\u2019t everything, Tom Daschle found that out being Senate minority leader doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t lose re-election which happened to him in 2004. Being visible also doesn\u2019t guarantee success, in Missouri Claire McCaskill held more than 50 townhalls just to lose 109 out of 115 counties.<\/p>\n