$174

For the last month the chattering classes have been clacking their collective teeth, wondering just how much money Mayor Bloomberg spent on his re-election.

Now we know. The numbers are in: $102 million. For a total of roughly 550,000 votes, that comes out to $174 per vote. In 2001 he spent $99 per vote and in 2001 he spent $112 per vote. So from 2001-2005,he increased his spending by $13 per vote but from 2005-2009 it went up $62 per vote.

62/13=4.77. The difference was almost five times greater in 2009 than 2005. Wow. And since Bloomberg won by only 5 percentage points and spent more than $100 mill to get it, that means he spent $20 million per point. Wow wow.

If Bloomberg had just given each voter $174, imagine what they could have done with it? I know what I would have done with it! For $174 I would:

• Pay our monthly cable/internet bill
• Pay our electric bill for two months
• Pay my cell phone bill for three months (a quarter of a year!)
• Get oysters on the half-shell and a porterhouse for two at a modest-priced steakhouse (without wine)
  
• Buy my wife a beautiful broach or pin or a scarf from the Met store
• Get some cheap Broadway tickets from Theatermania
• Save it and earn a few pennies from the bank!

Giving each of us voters $174 instead of spending it on stupid attack ads would not only have benefited the economy but also made the lives of us ordinary New York a little more pleasant in these bleak times. But ours is a "political" economy, haha, and so it goes (or should I say, the money goes).