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[–] Sixtysixpixistix 4 points 0 points (+4|-4) ago 

If the candidates were spending money on the same campaign that would make sense. Maybe person Y can afford to spend more. Maybe the campaign is more important to him. Maybe he needs to spend more in order to compete with person X. The possibilities are limitless because we're not comparing like with like.

That said, it does seem to be effective propaganda. People take a short-cut in their thinking and assume the disparity in campaign spending means one candidate is more frugal than another.

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[–] cyks 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

I think what is confusing you the most is the idea that the factors to take into consideration are not easily to disambiguate through rose tinted glasses.

What relationship is there between spending money on a campaign and running an economy?

You might as well ask what any large system of agents and transactions has to do with keeping an economy healthy, or what does the president do to affect the economy? Both can be answered by a 5 year old, but I assume you do not really care for easy answers.

Here is an easy answer: The money spent on the campaign can come from sources that may not have the greater good of the economy in mind. There can be a strong relationship between money spent on a campaign and running the economy if the campaign is for the U.S. President. Is that relationship easy to see with rose tinted glasses? No. It would be hard to see interests paying to win when you think everything is rosy. It would be hard to disambiguate large lists, populated with ideas that are too big to fail.

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[–] AdultRandy 0 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago 

Just to respond to your specific point, regardless of ability to spend and relative effectiveness of spending and so on, people will see spending a lot of money as "trying to buy votes."

And I think pretty much any image you'll see like this is propaganda. It's designed for somebody to view quickly and draw a conclusion.

Another thing to consider is how it highlights the difference in money source, not just the total dollar amounts.

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[–] Sixtysixpixistix 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

Yep. Showing the source of the money spent also begs the audience to draw a hasty conclusion.

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[–] 5324190? 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

If anything, Trump's campaign should, by old standards, cost far more than Clinton's or Sanders', since he had to distinguish himself from a field of 16 Republican candidates rather than the 2 or 3 Democratic candidates.