OK, so I have decided to cash in my Star Trek collectable plates and give the money to the Bush and/or the Kerry campaigns. What do I get for my money?
Or to say it another way, what would it take to become a minor ambassador, or maybe an appointed member to some commission or something?
What would be the best time to contribute? Early, when even 100K$ would make a difference?
I have long wondered about this.
Legally, you get nothing. And we all know that people only donate money because they believe in good government and expect nothing in return. :rolleyes:
In reality, if you donate a lot of money, you get access. You can talk to the politicians and, once elected, they will give your suggestions or requests a higher priority than requests from those who haven’t given them a lot of bucks. Sometimes, they consider it one request to be balanced against the big picture, but all too often, they start pimping for whoever pays them.
And don’t give all at once.
Give in dribs and drabs and make sure you do it sufficiently (say in $10K increments) to be worth a meeting with campaign bigwigs so you can get some face recognition. Towards the end of the campaign make the biggest donation and mention how you’d LOVE to be a part of the administration in some minor capacity. Then they’ll ask you and when you say some ambassadorship to a non-premium country they’ll be glad to give it to you as their BIG contributors will want England and France and such.
Piece of cake. Should only take $50 grand or so.
Given that you can only donate $2000 to a given candidate’s campaign in any single calendar year, it’s going to be hard to donate $10,000 to anyone unless you spread it out it to all of the candidates, including Nader and whatever nutjob is running for the Constitution Party this year.
You can, of course, donate that much money directly to a party, or to a 527 group. Which is what most people are doing (specifically, the 527s), because the 527s are the Massive Huge-Ass Loophole in the campaign finance reform act that insure that business as usual continued.
What is a 527?
The important thing is to make your contribution conspicuous. My suggestions:
(1) Go to as many fund-raising dinners as possible, and pay for your husband/wife and friends to go there too. When the candidate gets to your table, have all your friends there say what a great guy you are, paying for such a wonderful meal.
(2) Get appointed “Campaign Co-Chairman” or some such meaningless title. Anyone can get a job like that, for a small donation. Get as many of those jobs as you can (they don’t involve any actual work, just donations), so that the candidate starts noticing your name on those lists.
(3) Offer your mansion/ranch/whatever as a place to hold a fund-raising event. The candidate will certainly notice that you are the host, and will spend some time at the event talking to you.
“A tax-exempt group organized under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code to raise money for political activities including voter mobilization efforts, issue advocacy and the like. Currently, the FEC only requires a 527 group to file regular disclosure reports if it is a political party or political action committee (PAC) that engages in either activities expressly advocating the election or defeat of a federal candidate, or in electioneering communications.” (from here).
527s are not limited in the money they can raise or spend (unlike campaigns, which have limitations on fundraising, and on spending if they want matching funds), which is why 527s do most of the political advertising these days. Major 527s in this election cycle include MoveOn.org (which supports Democratic candidates) and The Club for Growth (which supports Republican candidates, although they backed Wesley Clark for a while, too).
Humm, this is interesting. Not as clear-cut as I hoped. Ah! for the good-old-days!