Thirty-five dollars can barely buy a tank of gas in the current economic climate, but Bob Healey, a Rhode Island man who ran for governor this week during Tuesday’s midterm election, arguably got more bang for his buck than one would expect .
Healey didn’t technically win this week’s gubernatorial race in Rhode Island, but did end up garnering nearly a quarter of the total votes cast in that state’s big election on Tuesday, and with hardly much monkey, to say the least.
Despite spending only $35.31 on his campaign for governor, the Moderate Party candidate received 67,707 votes during this week’s election, or around 22 percent of all ballots combined.
It’s amazing what $35 can do,” Healey told Eyewitness News on Wednesday. “As I’ve been saying, if we only spent $75, $80, we might’ve won the race.”
The Washington Post reported that a political analyst that appeared on the Providence, RI-based news outlet on Election Day agreed that Healey did beyond just about everyone’s expectations.
“I don’t think anybody expected Bob Healey to get that high,” the analyst said. “We expected Bob Healey in double figures, maybe as high as 14 or 15 percent, but he really drew a lot of votes. Some communities he actually won, if I remember seeing the numbers correctly. He ran second in some communities."
Healy first ran for governor in 1986 as an independent, and since 1994 he has sporadically campaigned for office under the self-made Cool Moose Party. Never before, however, has he performed as well in such a big race as what was seen after votes were tallied following the closing of polls late Tuesday.
This week’s contest in Rhode Island ultimately went to Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, who collected a cool 40 percent of the vote. Right on her heels, however, was Allan Fung, a Republican, and then Healey in third, obliterating the chances of two independent candidates who combined came short of 5,000 total votes.
According to Eyewitness News, Healey spent only a fraction of a cent—around five ten-thousandths of a penny—per vote, whereas the contest’s winner, Raimondo, invested $1.1 million in just the two months ahead of this week’s race.
Commenting to the network early Wednesday, Healey said money and politics don’t exactly go hand-in-hand as many have been led to expect.
“I think people are fed up with a lot of that system,” he said. “Certainly, I think that the major party people had their bases. When I looked at the results this morning, town by town, I didn’t see any surprises. I don’t think that I really hurt the Republicans, because if you look at most of the Republican communities, those votes didn’t really go to me.”
Yet after decades of failed attempts, Healey may finally be throwing in the towel after this week’s race, even if he exceeded the expectations of most everyone. According to Eyewitness News, the peculiar would-be politician said he expects to focus his efforts in the coming months not on another race, but a business venture he’s working on involving an as-yet unnamed liquor product.