A brief history of disastrous self-financed campaigns

By now, every political junkie knows that Hillary Clinton made a $5 million donation to her own primary campaign in the days leading up to Super Tuesday. Should the personal cash infusion make her supporters nervous? Maybe. Certainly the Clintons can afford such a payout, but by dipping into her own pockets, Hillary joins the dubious ranks of the self-financers, for whom GOP dropout Mitt Romney is this year's poster boy.

True, self-financing did wonders for Michael Bloomberg, who spent a reported $148 million on his two New York City mayoral campaigns, but experts say that paying your own way is never ideal, and is usually a last resort. As Jennifer A. Steen, a professor at Boston College and author of a book on self-financed congressional runs, told the Washington Post in 2000: "Self-financers usually don't win. When they do, it isn't their money alone that puts them in office."

Still, win or lose, there's certainly entertainment value in watching the Steve Forbeses of the world fritter away millions in hopes of winning votes from unwashed wage slaves. Below, Radar's roundup of self-financed candidates who broke the bank, and then broke down.

The Candidate: Ross Perot
The Office: President, 1992, and again in 1996

Along with being the most successful third-party presidential candidate of the modern era, Ross Perot is the patron saint of self-financing. Despite being regarded in some circles as completely insane, the Texas billionaire managed to garner 19 percent of the vote against Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush in the 1992 race. Running as an independent who hated NAFTA, liked guns, thought abortion was just fine, and used folksy slogans like, "It's broke, let's fix it," Perot was the kind of nativist who would normally attract some small support. He also dumped in $63.2 million of his own money. In 1996, Perot ran again, but on a much tighter budget—he only spent $8 million, which resulted in 8 percent of the vote—a much better return than the first go round.

Having retreated entirely from public life, Perot resurfaced in January for a brief conversation with Newsweek's Jonathan Alter. He was under the impression that Barack Obama was a Muslim, and slammed John McCain for once referring to him as a "fruitcake."

Total Amount Spent: $71.2 million
Cost Per Vote: $2.56