Friday, November 4, 2011

Stimulating the economy with campaigning

Picking thought the mail today, I counted at least 5 pieces of nice laminated political mailings.  With the election date next week, I'm sure there will be calls and more mailings over the weekend.  Between this season and my experience within a campaign, I'm starting to wonder if maybe campaigning can stimulate the economy.

Looking at a piece of literature, it may not be apparent, but there is a lot of work that goes behind it.  Someone has to determine the verbiage, formatting and design of the piece.  Pictures have to be taken (maybe not specifically for this piece, but at some point).  Someone has to put it all together in a way that the printer can make the mailer.  That's a lot of work and time behind all that.  Of course, the glossiness of the mailer, the size, and the number of components all influence the cost of the mailer.  The ones I got today, all top dollar!  Finally, the post office gets the postage for each piece (okay, they get a bulk rate, but still have to pay).

Just think if all these positions were unopposed.  For instance, one of the local races is unopposed.  I didn't get anything for that "race" nor do I expect to receive anything over the weekend.  Suppose also that these campaigns didn't raise much money and couldn't do the mailer (my garbage would be lighter).  In both of these circumstances, the economic activity is much smaller.

Given the state of the economy, instead of suggesting, as the Governor of North Carolina did, that we should suspend elections, maybe we should have them more often.  Just think, if we could get this amount of economic activity every year instead of every other year.  Wow!  Then, if things don't improve, we could have 6 month terms, then 3 month terms ....


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