Fun With Numbers: Just $5 Million More?

Looking back at the figures reported by the Omaha World-Herald earlier this month showing that 2006 Senate challenger Pete Ricketts spent $60 in his campaign for each vote received in the general election, I just found myself curious how much it would have cost him, at that rate, to make up the difference in his 36%-64% whooping by incumbent Sen. Ben Nelson.

The Secretary of State's election results have Nelson winning by a margin of 164,460 votes. Assuming a fixed turn-out, Ricketts needed 50% + 1 of that total to flip on his behalf to have won the race. In other words, he would have needed another 82,231 votes.

At the established cost of $60 per vote, Ricketts would have won had he spent only $4,933,860 more on his campaign. And, just to be on the safe side, who could have blamed him for upping that amount to an even $5 million?

Of course, economic and political realities don't lend themselves to such simple calculations. But it's certainly something to think about. In November, did the people of Nebraska prove their votes weren't for sale or did they simply have a higher asking price?

More likely, "MONEY" is a threshold concept - one you need to win but which can't be broken down into dollars and cents. As an heir to a multi-billion dollar fortune, it was a threshold Ricketts met the second he declared his candidacy. In a position like that post-election, I can't help wondering whether Ricketts has been asking himself what he should have done differently or how much more he should have spent.

Unless he's convinced himself his race with Nelson was never winnable. If only that had truly been the case.