While the Democratic presidential candidates were bickering among themselves over accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists, a far more significant political development occurred: George W. Bush broke his own record for presidential fundraising. He hit $131 million as of the end of January. (In 2000 he raised $101 million for the entire race.) His campaign aides have said their goal is $170 million. But at the rate he's going, Bush is on track to bag more than $200 million, perhaps even a quarter of a billion dollars. And all this is for a primary campaign in which he has no opponent. Bush will have to spend these funds before the GOP convention in September. That is when his campaign will get a check from the US Treasury for about $74 million, under the law that provides public funding to presidential candidates for the general election. Even though Bush has no rivals in his bid for the Republican nomination, he does have to face attacks from the Democrats. It is not unreasonable for him to raise some money for that. But $250 million? In politics--as in most walks of life--this is a mind-boggling sum. So we have crafted a few unorthodox measurements to place Bush's pile of moola in perspective.

Bush could compensate 20,000 Enron workers for their loss in pension funds--but at only about 25-50 cents on the dollar. And Bush's projected campaign total will nearly equal the amount Enron would have received from the retroactive corporate-tax rebate Bush tried (and failed) to enact after 9/11.

This is the cost of removing 23 million landmines in Egypt left over from World War II.

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