No Recession in the Campaign Finance Industry

"Keep the change."

Link to September 7 AP story, "No recession here: Election spending sets records".

Excerpt (with added emphasis along the way): Turns out politics, for all its focus on the gloomy economy, is a recession-proof industry.

This year's volatile election is bursting with money, setting fundraising and spending records in a high-stakes struggle for control of Congress amid looser but still fuzzy campaign finance rules.

Based on the latest financial reports, House and Senate candidates in this election cycle raised nearly $1.2 billion, well ahead of the pace for contests in 2008, 2006 and 2004.

Races for governor in 37 states — more than half of those for open seats — are also setting fundraising records. Billionaire Republican Meg Whitman leads the way, pumping $104 million of her own money into her campaign for California governor.

And then there's this little tidbit from yesterday's Journal-Sentinel.

In his bid for governor, businessman Mark Neumann badly lags behind rival Republican Scott Walker in fund raising - that is, if you don't count the $2.7 million Neumann has lent his own campaign.

Or this from the Miami Herald's "Naked Politics" blog:

And that was as of July 15th!

"What's it all about....."