Mixing up a national election, from concentrate

Taegan Goddard's political wire flags a couple of pieces that put the actual scope of "national" politics in perspective.

One is from Paul Begala, who argues that the election will come down to less than 1 million voters, including some Iowans:

We can almost guarantee that 48 percent of each state's voters will go for Obama, and another 48 percent will decide for Romney. And so the whole shootin' match comes down to around 4 percent of the voters in six states.

I did the math so you won't have to. Four percent of the presidential vote in Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, and Colorado is 916,643 people. That's it. The American president will be selected by fewer than half the number of people who paid to get into a Houston Astros home game last year-and my beloved Astros sucked last year; they were the worst team in baseball. Put another way, there are about as many people in San Jose as there are swing voters who will decide this election.

The second is from Lawrence Lessig, who contends only a small fraction of Americans bankroll campaigns:

A tiny number of Americans -- .26 percent -- give more than $200 to a congressional campaign. .05 percent give the maximum amount to any congressional candidate. .01 percent give more than $10,000 in any election cycle. And .000063 percent -- 196 Americans -- have given more than 80 percent of the super-PAC money spent in the presidential elections so far.