The obvious answer is potential influence but that money is just gone if your candidate loses right? How much influence do you actually get for the money and is it worth it? You could support a particular Presidential candidate or Senator but that isn’t going to do you much good if most of Congress isn’t cooperative.
What are they shooting for anyway? Tax breaks? Laws favorable to their businesses? Tea parties on the White House lawn? It seems to me that the cost/benefit analysis for high level donations generally isn’t going to work out in favor of the donor.
I think most people are reasonable and that includes the rich and politicians.
Going on that assumption I think the rich person’s reasoning goes like this; there is some new law that I either like or don’t like, I like most people decide that I would like to influence one of my representatives to push the legislation my direction, unlike Joe Schmoe I don’t call the senator’s public line I have my assistant use my network of business associates to gain me a meeting with said politician, at the meeting the I explain why I like/don’t like the policy and try to convince the politician to agree with me, if they do then I would like to keep them around so I try to ensure they get re-elected, if they don’t then I try to find someone who would better represent me and get them elected, once I succeed I then try to keep the politician that agrees with me in office.
Of course, if you’re rich enough to try to support multiple politicians so that all of Congress and the president agrees with you (the Kochs are a prime example of this) rather than just your local mayor or governor.
What do you get out of it? You get people who think about the world the same way you do making decisions about how it should work. In a smaller case example, I’ve got a client who supports her mayor because he is very pro-business and wants new companies coming to town and gives the new businesses tax breaks and helps to grease the regulatory skids. By keeping the mayor in office my client can ensure that it will be easier for everyone to start a business which he believes is good for the community but also allows him to get his new business up with a lower cost. In his mind its good for everyone. Now say we’ve discovered that he is being improperly regulated to too low of a standard people could say it is because the mayor is bought and paid for but the two aren’t really linked.
On a national scale, this could work by an oil company supporting a local politician who has seen how oil companies have improved Midland texas and over time they become a senator who wants tax breaks for the oil industry and to minimize the regulations that are preventing them from drilling more and creating more jobs. Over time the oil company has invested in a city councilman that grew into a senator that can affect tax policy but that takes investing in many campaigns over the years to get an opinion you like put forth in national politics.
If your mayor gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar or the senator loses his reelection campaign then, of course, that money is lost but it wouldn’t take much favorable regulation to pay back the investment and there are lots of people who donate to political campaigns just because they believe in a cause and aren’t looking to make money.
What if your goal was for Congress to cease functioning well, or at all?
Mr. Moneybags gives Candidate Sphincterlicker 1,000,000 Simoleons, hoping that when elected, Senator Sphincterlicker will be more likely to pass laws favorable to Mr. Moneybags’ interests, but Candidate Sphincterlicker loses to Candidate Brownnose.
BUT, more people than former-Candidate Sphincterlicker know about Mr. Moneybags’ donation, and Mr. Moneybags soon finds a whole bunch of people ingratiating themselves and seeking further donations, now not just for Candidates but for a Cause!
Some candidates win, some candidates lose, but the party just keeps on going!
Rich people make lots of unsuccessful investments; they don’t limit themselves to sure things. Their key objective is that overall their investments are quite profitable, not that each specific investment has to be profitable. The same applies to political investments. So their goals can be tax cuts, favorable regulations, contracts or PR.
As mentioned previously the rich also have political objectives to support their view of what kind of world there should be.
Another factor is that even donations to a candidate that loses can give you political influence. After all, the candidates who did win are going to need to run for re-election. Now that you’re shown that you’re somebody who can and will donate large sums of money, you’ll be courted by politicians hoping you’ll donate to their future campaigns.
Also, very wealthy people have a lot to gain or lose by specific legislation. Hedge fund executives can have their profits greatly increased or decreased by minutiae that is included or excluded in obscure sections of bills that the average person, even a political junkie, would be unaware of.
As much as people love to either argue or ignore politics, the average person’s life, even at the upper middle class level, remains fairly unchanged regardless of who is in political office. Most of the time, the bad shit that happens in life isn’t directly related to government policies.
Yet another point: A presidential candidate is probably a governor, senator, or other high official. A senate or gubernatorial candidate is probably a representative, state legislator, or other moderately-high official. And even if they lose their election to the higher office, they’re likely to continue on in their lower office, which might still be able to do things favorable to you.
Human minds don’t deal well with large numbers. Not to pick on the Koch brothers in particular, but they’re estimated to have net worth of roughly 47 billion dollars each. That’s 47,000 million dollars. If you have somebody with $47,000 in the bank and they gave $1 to a cause they believed strongly in, no one would think it was unreasonable for them to do that. I think the real question is why don’t the mega-wealthy donate even more than they do.
A lot of elected officials are cheap. No surprise that Flynn had a price, the only surprise was how low that price was. He allegedly got something like $500k. That is no where new even modest fuck you money unless you’re an inner city crack head looking to spectacularly OD.
The opportunity cost for a super-rich person to donate, say, 5% of their yearly income is much lower than for a middle class person to do the same, and they get actual tangible benefits that have been mentioned in this thread.
Donating 5% of my income to a cause wouldn’t get me more than a thank-you. Maybe a phone call or a card if I picked a local organization. I certainly wouldn’t get political consideration.
You’re getting access; your calls get returned. This can be useful in any number of ways small and large, not just for influencing policy, but if you need something like a zoning variance or environmental waiver for your beachfront property, or a job for your idiot nephew.
The amount of money in politics overall is surprisingly low, given the stakes. George Will used to like to point out that the US spends more on potato chips than it does on elections.
After it emerged from the Star Chamber, as honoured an respected as it ever was, Microsoft went nuts and gave freely to everybody.
Of course, like TV salaries, largesse has to come from somewhere so for that latter general consumers pay through advertising, and to add insult to injury pay the salaries of advertising people who think up these frauds; and for Microsoft they just increased the ultimate prices of their… products.
And even before, and the cause of it’s exoneration: Bush declared that he did not favour breaking up the company, whereas Al Gore hinted that he would back the justice department’s demand for restructuring. At that point, Microsoft realised that it needed friends in high places. According to Roeder, in the seven days before Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s ruling against Microsoft, the company donated more soft money to the national political parties than it had given to federal candidates and political parties from 1989 to 1996. The Guardian
Congress is biggest bargain in the country. Seriously. For a couple of million dollars, everyone in Washington DC will return your phone calls. You may not get stuff you don’t deserve but you will get pretty much everything you do deserve.