Election productivity drain

How much potential economic productivity is being diverted into the election? I’m prompted to ask this question by having a young man walk up to our door Saturday in the rain. We live in a fairly rural neighborhood, where there’s quite a separation between houses. We’re at the bottom of about a mile long road which runs directly up hill and has only 20 houses on it. This young man was soliciting contributions for the DNC. At first, I thought he was maybe selling magazine subscriptions, but then realized that actually those guys are smart enough not to work our neighborhood on foot. Then it occurred to me that this guy walking miles in the rain with a clipboard collecting checks was actually only a tiny piece of the volunteer organization that’s putting itself in place for this election. True, he’s probably primarily targeting high-affluence neighborhoods with a high proportion of likely Dem donors (in fact he clearly knew what I’d given to the dems already), but when I told him a number of neighbors up the hill have Kerry/Edwards stickers on their cars, he set off to knock on their doors. Now multiply that out across the country. Then imagine all the day-of-election people both working at the polls and also working as volunteers for either party to drive people to the polls, call them, etc. Then add in the polling activity. Add in all the gifts to either party. Add in the gifts in kind. Is the choice of one candidate over the other worth the investment of resources being poured in to this thing? I think this time it more than likely is. Kerry vs Bush for 4 years will certainly have an impact of more than $1bln one way or the other on the general economy. $1bln is probably a couple of days’ ordinance for Fallujah. In fact for most people giving time or money, the impact to them will quite possibly exceed what they’re giving. It will for me for certain. If Bush wins, I’ll get back all the money I’ve given to the Dems in tax cuts.