The History Of Campaign Financing

How do candidates finance their increasingly expensive election campaigns?

Yard signs, bumper stickers and TV ads are all signs of an upcoming election and they all cost money — lots of it. Money in political campaigns is a story as old as America itself. 

In 1755 George Washington lost an election in North America's first legislative assembly. In the next go-round, he spent about $195 on punch and hard cider for potential voters, and he won.  

The newly elected state legislature noticed money coming into campaigns and soon passed a law prohibiting candidates "or any persons on their behalf" from giving voters "money, meat, drink, entertainment or provision or any present, gift, reward or entertainment, etc. in order to be elected."