The special congressional election in Georgia’s Sixth District set a sad record: most money ever spent on a congressional election.

Thirty million dollars.  And as I said, sad.

The district has a population of just under 700,000.  A subset of that number is eligible to vote and as in every district, the subset of people who actually vote is smaller.

The special election generated 260,000 votes.  I figure 80 percent were sure bets to vote for either the Democrat or the Republican.  That means there were about 52,000 people who were pondering their pick.

And it was to influence the decisions of those 52,000 voters that political operatives spent $30,000,000.  For that heap of cash, you gets lots of radio and television ads, billboards, posters, brochures, buttons, refrigerator magnets and rubber-chicken dinners.

Of course, what you are looking for is votes.  If you do the math, you are spending $577 for each of the 52,000 votes in play.  Like I said, sad.

Something is terribly wrong when we spend so much money to market, promote and sell political candidates.  We must believe that the biggest spender will win, not the soundest idea.  Does money make right?