I wouldn't give advertising that much credit. An equal amount of money is spent on lost elections too.
That's false. There's a pretty strong correlation between outspending and winning elections. The losing side usually spent less. In aggregate, much more money is spent winning elections than losing them.
eg: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/04/04/th...
A lot of money is wasted on lost elections. I did say "equal", but my point was a lot of advertising dollars fail.
Barney Frank: "If the voters have a position, the votes will kick money's rear end any time. I've never met a politician-- I've been in the legislative bodies for 40 years now-- who, choosing between a significant opinion in his or her district and a number of campaign contributors, doesn't go with the district."
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/461/t...
And there's probably a belief that people will like the bills after it passes. Just as a lot of 'conservatives' eventually came out in favor of Obamacare (like McCain), I'm sure a lot of people would admit that they like Obamacare-lite more than Obamacare. Self-interested politicians might think that the bills would be more popular once some people saw their health care burdens drop. And I don't think they're wrong, the healthy people who make Obamacare possible stand to gain the most under the Republican healthcare proposals - the young, the wealthy, the healthy.
Half the country votes and half the country votes GOP, a 25% approval rating can translate to near-universal approval in a political faction.
In the 2012 US Presidential election (seems the data is not yet available for 2016), an estimated $7B was spent in total by all candidates and private groups. This is about $21.54 per person.
For comparison, in the last Canadian federal election, the top 5 parties combined received $127M in funding (public + private contributions). This amounts to about $3.60 per person, about one sixth as much on a per capita basis.