# How does McCain get donations from people who don't care about the election? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2008, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026 "2008-08-06T13:11:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/1 "2008-08-06T13:11:34Z")
[From today’s _Washington Post:_](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/05/AR2008080503502.html?hpid=topnews) > [@](#): > > Harry Sargeant III, a former naval officer and the owner of an oil-trading company that recently inked defense contracts potentially worth more than $1 billion, is the archetype of a modern presidential money man. The law forbids high-level supporters from writing huge checks, but with help from friends in the Middle East and the former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit – who now serves as a consultant to his company – Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 for three presidential candidates from a collection of ordinary people, several of whom professed little interest in the outcome of the election. > > \ > > Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant’s network live in modest homes in Southern California’s Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March. > > Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money. > > “I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I’ve got a lot of friends,” Sargeant said in a telephone interview yesterday. “I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me.” Why do these people make such large campaign contributions if they don’t care about the election?! This might not be as big a story if it were not about McCain – author of the McCain-Feingold Bill, what currently passes for campaign finance reform in America. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/2 "2008-08-06T13:14:36Z")
Is the suggestion here that those uninterested donors received money from Harry Sargeant, and then passed on his money to McCain’s campaign? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/3 "2008-08-06T13:34:23Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] Is the suggestion here that those uninterested donors received money from Harry Sargeant, and then passed on his money to McCain’s campaign? [/QUOTE] That possibility had not even occurred to me, honestly. How rich is this dude? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/4 "2008-08-06T13:58:17Z")
This sounds quite familiar. From p. 24 of _How the Good Guys Finally Won_, Jimmy Breslin’s excellent book on Watergate: > [@](#): > > [A]t the start of 1973, instead of having such a smashing year with the Kalmbachs blocking for him, Steinbrenner wound up being tackled by James Polk of The Washington Star-News. Polk is first class. He spoke to Steinbrenner about the campaign contributions made by American Shipbuilding employees. Steinbrenner told Polk a story which Polk did not believe. Polk then went to American Shipbuilding employees. He found an accountant who earned $16,000 in salary had contributed $3000 to Dedicated Americans for Good Government and another $3000 to Dedicated Volunteers for a Better America. The accountant said they were personal contributions, not corporate contributions which of course were illegal. Polk learned that the employee had made out the campaign checks at the same time he had received a surprise bonus of $6000 from American Shipbuilding. Oh, no, the employee said. His contributions had been out of patriotism. Polk printed the stories. He also called the situation to the attention of the Watergate Special Prosecutor’s office at the time it was established. The Special Prosecutor’s office sent FBI agents out to interview Steinbrenner and his employees. > > ``` > "Don't worry about it," John H. Melcher, Jr., American Shipbuilding counsel, told the employees. He, Steinbrenner, and the employees told the same story to the FBI that they had told to Polk. Subpoenas then were issued to the employees, calling them before a grand jury. "Don't worry," Melcher told them again. This time they did worry. "He would be saying 'don't worry' to me the day I got put behind bars for perjury," one of them said. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/5 "2008-08-06T14:01:56Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] That possibility had not even occurred to me, honestly. How rich is this dude? [/QUOTE] From the beginning of the quote in the OP: “Harry Sargeant III, a former naval officer and the owner of an oil-trading company that recently inked defense contracts potentially worth more than $1 billion…” That doesn’t mean he’s worth $1B, but clearly the amounts of the suspicious contributions are orders of magnitude below what he hopes to gain if the GOP stays in control of the Executive Branch. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/6 "2008-08-06T14:05:17Z")
Sounds familiar? You bet. It hit the news some months ago when most people became aware of bundling for the first time - and learned the name Norman Hsu. And I’ll say the same thing I said then - if there is evidence that Sargeant engaged in illegal activities with his bundling, then McCain should give up the donations (return them or donate them to charity) just as Hillary Clinton did when the Hsu mess hit. Frankly, I don’t think there is more you can do beyond that so long as bundling remains legal, and I didn’t beat up on Clinton much at the time precisely because of this. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/7 "2008-08-06T14:57:04Z")
Given the level of contributions that Obama is getting, he must be tapping into sources who have never contributed to presidential campaigns before, too. Both candidates are relying heavily on Bundlers. There was an article in the SJ Merc today about Obama’s network of Bundlers. It’s not on their web site yet, but I’ll check later and see if it is. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/8 "2008-08-06T15:02:31Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Sounds familiar? You bet. It hit the news some months ago when most people became aware of bundling for the first time - and learned the name Norman Hsu. [/quote] That’s exactly what I came here to post. Hsu’s story came to light after a paper in San Francisco discovered that every member of a family of modest means, connected to Hsu in some way, had given thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns even though they almost never voted. It sounds pretty similar to this story. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/9 "2008-08-06T15:06:52Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Given the level of contributions that Obama is getting, he must be tapping into sources who have never contributed to presidential campaigns before, too. Both candidates are relying heavily on Bundlers. There was an article in the SJ Merc today about Obama’s network of Bundlers. It’s not on their web site yet, but I’ll check later and see if it is. [/QUOTE] OK, looks like it was actually a NYT article, so here it is: > [@](#): > > Big Donors Are a Major Force in Obama Campaign > > In an effort to cast himself as independent of the influence of money on politics, Senator Barack Obama often highlights the campaign contributions of $200 or less that have amounted to fully half of the $340 million he has collected so far. > > \ > > Behind those larger donations is a phalanx of more than 500 Obama “bundlers,” fund-raisers who have each collected contributions totaling $50,000 or more. Many of the bundlers come from industries with critical interests in Washington. Nearly three dozen of the bundlers have raised more than $500,000 each, including more than a half-dozen who have passed the $1 million mark and one or two who have exceeded $2 million, according to interviews with fund-raisers. > > \ > > An analysis of campaign finance records shows that about two-thirds of his bundlers are concentrated in four major industries: law, securities and investments, real estate and entertainment. Lawyers make up the largest group, numbering roughly 130, with many of them working for firms that also have lobbying arms. At least 100 Obama bundlers are top executives or brokers from investment businesses: nearly two dozen work for financial titans like Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs or Citigroup. About 40 others come from the real estate industry. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/10 "2008-08-06T15:17:54Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] Is the suggestion here that those uninterested donors received money from Harry Sargeant, and then passed on his money to McCain’s campaign? [/QUOTE] What I was thinking, actually, was that Sargeant was going to people who owed him favors or were otherwise armtwistable. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/11 "2008-08-06T15:28:29Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Sounds familiar? You bet. It hit the news some months ago when most people became aware of bundling for the first time [/quote] You misspelled ‘years.’ That’s what Bush’s ‘Pioneers’ and so forth were, after all. And they got a hell of a lot of play in the news, both in 1999-2000 and in 2003-04. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/12 "2008-08-06T15:38:36Z")
Bundling is perfectly legal, btw, and I can’t see why it should be otherwise. I know there’d been talk about changing the laws so that bundlers would have to be identified as such, so that people would know who was gaining influence through their bundling. If that wasn’t passed, it should be, IMHO. The issue here, as it was in the Hsu case, is that a number of contributors gave amounts that were seemingly beyond their ability to give. One possibility suggested by common sense is that money was given to them to give in turn to McCain, which would be illegal. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/13 "2008-08-06T16:47:56Z")
Since this is Great Debates: Campaign finance reform is like the war on drugs. In the same manner that some people will always do drugs, some people will always want to contribute money to political campaigns. You can push it underground through 527’s, soft money contributions, or any other of a plethora of means described in the above linked-to articles, but in these modern days, money is speech, and you can’t stop people from speaking. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/14 "2008-08-06T17:19:52Z")
I just saw [this](http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/46533.html) last night, and it seems to be on point. It’s certainly a big question mark in my mind, and this one seems even more egregious than the one in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/15 "2008-08-06T19:48:19Z")
[QUOTE=threemae] Since this is Great Debates: Campaign finance reform is like the war on drugs. In the same manner that some people will always do drugs, some people will always want to contribute money to political campaigns. You can push it underground through 527’s, soft money contributions, or any other of a plethora of means described in the above linked-to articles, but in these modern days, money is speech, and you can’t stop people from speaking. [/QUOTE] But (based on previous GD and GQ threads and discussions), while there might not be any countries that have effectively stamped out drug abuse, there **are** many other democracies where campaign-finance law is truly effective and really does prevent the rich and the corporate interests from wielding political influence vastly disproportionate to their numbers. (Their political influence will always be **somewhat** disproportionate to their numbers, of course, campaign funding notwithstanding, just because they are so well-connected.) And money is **not** speech. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-mccain-get-donations-from-people-who-dont-care-about-the-election/459026/16 "2008-08-07T15:28:38Z")
Now [it appears Sargeant used the same methods (whatever they are) to raise donations for the 2006 campaign of Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.](http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/article760828.ece)