Same reason that poor and middle-class folks do, I expect. You seem to have the SDMB idea that ‘rich’ people are some sort of shoulder to shoulder monolithic group, but they really aren’t…and generally, they have motivations that aren’t that dissimilar to anyone else. They have different political views which some of them want to support, they also have in some cases vertical desires to push forward programs or industries they support so they donate to political candidates they think will achieve those goals…or how they will anyway. Some of them, I’m sure, have other more overarching goals (some that support both parties candidates or just both parties, for instance), but generally they donate for the same reason everyone else who donates does so
On the contrary. Lobbying and political donations are about the best return on investment you can get.
I also think that lots of rich people donate for philosophical reasons. Sure, the Koch brothers stand to profit personally from some of their political stances, but it seems to me that they really believe in libertarianism. They might be wrong, and it’s certainly easier to believe in the tenets of a philosophy that stands to enrich you than one that would impoverish you, but they’re also pushing for criminal justice reform, which doesn’t really align with a profit motive for them.
If the thing you think is important is a particular legal and societal structure, they way to accomplish it is to try to get politicians you agree with elected.
Also, you can get to be an ambassador in some not-very-demanding posting in a basically-friendly country. You think all of those people were actually qualified for their posts?
There’s obviously some difference between a situation where you can donate enough to personally attract the attention and gratitude of the winner, and/or you personally can really influence who that winner (or which policy, say in a referendum) is, and the ‘normal’ situation where your donation is one grain of sand on the beach.
The doesn’t however directly translate into the motive of the giver being fundamentally different. The Kochs were mentioned, I agree they really seem to believe in libertarianism and it’s somewhat of an extraordinary claim that people with $10’s bils really care a lot about increasing that amount. Maybe they do, but I don’t think you can just assume that’s a key priority of theirs. Also in some cases the economic and political interest can correlate rather than one causing the other. For example somebody like Tom Steyer, very rich green activist, has vested interests in govt policy favorable to green industries, but the investments which benefit from such govt policies were arguably also driven in the first place by believing in the benefits of greenness, not that he couldn’t make money any other way.
Some examples mention big donors who play both sides of the fence. In that case I think it’s more reasonable to assume their motive is to have friends in elected office. It would be rather pointless for average people to give insignificant donations to both sides.
The other thing to mention is that depending on the scale of politics you don’t have to be the Kochs or anything remotely close to influence things personally. A guy in our town used his money as a major NY law firm partner to have his wife totally dominate local advertising when she ran for office (or she used it, they used it, not looking for sexism debate, but he’s the one making big, but not remotely Koch-like, $'s). It doesn’t take that much if the competing people are also part time politicians with normal incomes. But she kept losing trying to advance from city council to mayor; needless to say money while important doesn’t completely dictate election outcomes.