MONEY obviously matters in American politics, but some who wish to be president clearly get a better return on their investments than others. The big Democratic spenders (Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) have already shelled out more than $40m dollars each for their campaigns; the Republican Mitt Romney has spent over $50m. At least they have some delegates to show for it. Rudy Giuliani, so far, has spent over $30m and has just a single delegate (this should change in the Florida primary on Tuesday January 29th). The most efficient is Mike Huckabee, who claims 40 delegates for an outlay of $1.6m, a rate of about $42,000 per delegate compared with, for example, Mr Romney's $908,000. A Democrat needs 2,025 delegates to seal the nomination, a Republican needs only 1,191.

AFP/Reuters