It’s a sad commentary on American politics that in order to win, you have to spend the equivalent of more than the gdp of many nations.
Robert Green Ingersoll - Indianapolis Speech (1876)
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/indianapolis_speech76.html
“I am a Republican. I will tell you why: This is the only free Government in the world. The Republican party made it so. The Republican party took the chains from four millions of people. The Republican party, with the wand of progress, touched the auction- block and it became a school house, The Republican party put down the Rebellion, saved the nation, kept the old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind should be extirpated from the face of this continent. What more? I am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed. It is a party that has a platform as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as the human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself, a party that says, no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul.”