A $100 Million Donation from Adelson Is Like You Giving About $300
By donating $10 million to a pro-Romney Super PAC today, the right's favorite money man, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, brought himself a little closer to making good on his boast of possibly contributing $100 million to the GOP cause in 2012, following the $21 million he previously gave to support Newt Gingrich's campaign. And while $100 million (!) sounds like a lot of money, for Adelson it's pocket change. As NPR White House correspondent Ari Shapiro notes today, $100 million constitutes the same percentage of Adelson's wealth that $300 to $400 does for normal Americans. As Shapiro tweets: "Sheldon Adelson says he may spend $100m on this presidential race. As a % of wealth, that would be like a typical US family giving $360."
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Our arithmetic yields $310, assuming that Adelson is worth $24.9 billion as of March 2012 (per Forbes) and that the median household is worth $77,300 as of 2010 (according to recent Fed figures). Regardless of the exact amount, the point is the same: For the portion of your income that you might pay to keep the electricity on every month in the summer, Adelson is able to potentially bend the course of American politics. Direct your righteous indignation here.
