Despite efforts to brand well-financed politicians as unfit for public service, voters apparently don't withhold their votes from the well-heeled. In fact, the most recent reports, which cover the period from mid-October through mid-November, reveal much the opposite. Fairly consistently, the big money raisers in last month's elections were big winners, too.
Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker, who throughout the campaign was reported to be ahead of the pack in fund-raising, threw caution to the wind. He accepted a total of $291,752 in contributions, most of it from business and development interests. When all was said and done, Mr. Ecker spent $267,277 on his successful re-election bid, approximately $6 per vote.
His Democratic opponent, Susan B. Gray, did her best to paint Mr. Ecker as the servant of developers. That strategy, understandably, paid few dividends when it came to financing her campaign. Ms. Gray raised a paltry $21,968 and spent $21,883 -- or 88 cents per each vote she received.
Similarly, the lion's share of County Council candidates who raised the most money won. There was one exception. Yet even it seemed to prove the point that voters don't much care, except in rare, isolated cases, about the size or origins of a candidate's war chest. Republican Riaz Rana promised not to accept a nickel from the public for the Fourth District seat on the County Council, and instead poured an eye-popping $78,253 of his own money into his campaign. His challenger, Democrat Mary C. Lorsung, spent only $7,212 -- and stomped Mr. Rana anyway.
(In the one case where a political contribution might have backfired in Howard, James B. Kraft lost the Democratic primary for the Fourth District council seat after it was revealed he got a major chuck of money from one developer.)
Voters, however, didn't seem to care that Mr. Rana was making a statement about accepting outside money. Nor were they repulsed by Mr. Ecker's fat list of contributors with development interests, even as they overwhelmingly approved a referendum to effect greater control over zoning matters.
In some races, the amount of money spent on attaining public office has reached obscene heights. Yet while there may be voter outrage about it, there seems little voter backlash against it.