Amount of money spent on buying advertising in Pennsylvania: about $16 million
Total GDP of Cameroon: about $17 million
Instead of advertising campaigns that basically did nothing to change the electoral math, we could have basically doubled the incomes of a nation of desperately poor Africans. Think about this when they start talking about their poverty policy.
Update Yes, I transposed a decimal. I am an idiot. New invidious comparison: with that money, fifty thousand of the world's poorest citizens could have been pulled out of deep poverty for a year.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2008/04/invidious-comparisons/3308/