The good old days...

The discussion at coffee this morning involved gas prices, with reports of sightings in Indianapolis at $2.39 a gallon. Right now that sounds like a pretty good deal. But it also triggers a lot of stories that make our kids eyes roll.

Like when I could fill the tank for what a gallon cost last week. Or how I bought my first car for $675.00, and how just 5 years earlier it had listed for $3200.00 brand new. I heard a story yesterday about a farmer that is paying more per year to rent ground for a year than he used to spend to buy it outright. We've all heard stories, (and I suspect we'll hear a lot more in the coming weeks), about people that pay more in property taxes than in house payments. Old geezers like me could fill a book with those kind of stories.

Several years ago, when I first became involved in politics, a person in the know told me that if you decide to run for office, once you get outside of town campaigns, you could expect to spend around $5.00 per vote. I didn't roll my eyes at the time, but I do remember thinking that was a lot of money to spend for a vote.

The other day I going over the results of a recent campaign and election. In 2006, when I ran for state representative, we raised and spent a little under $12,000.00 on the campaign, and recieved about 2800 votes. It figured out to $4.24 per vote, so I felt that we had made prudent use of the donations. But we still lost, so I thought I'd do a little investigating on my opponents.

My Democrat opponent, Dave Sadler, spent a little under $90,000.00, with each vote costing $11.29. My Republican opponent, and eventually the winner of the race, Tom Saunders, spent over $200,000.00, which figures out to $22.26 per vote.

I've always thought I'd rather be able to buy gas for $3.00 a gallon than not be able to buy it for $.25 a gallon, but I'm not sure I have the same feelings about votes.

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