I’m likely as materialistic as the next guy. But even so, we don’t spend nearly as much as some. Only rarely will we pay to see professional sports, and typically then only because of an Indian Guides event or perhaps checking out a minor league team (which is still generally affordable). If we see movies, we go to the dollar theater. When we go out to eat for a fancy dinner, we’ll use coupons to get something for free and make us feel better about blowing a chunk of money. We’re in the minor leagues.
Politicians raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for local elections. Move up to the state and you’re talking millions. On the national level, tens of millions is not uncommon – and is, in fact, close to a requirement. Government routinely talks in terms of not millions, but billions, of dollars. Jury awards in certain liability trials amount to hundreds of millions. Lotteries across the country award jackpots of many millions more. The best professional sports players command contracts that pay them millions of dollars each year.
Prior to the 1950s or so, there wasn’t much money at all involved in running for office. Certainly not to the scale we see today. Until the 1970s, advertising budgets existed, but not to where a company could blow a couple million on a single 30-second spot to show during the Super Bowl. Where are the stories of lottery winnings and massive jury awards from the 1920s, the blackest of all decades, financially speaking?