Weekly Roundup: I Don’t Get Political Donations
Scammer and profiteer Norman Hsu has been in the news lately because he was a major political contributor and “bundler,” someone who could get other people to contribute the maximum political contribution. Hsu also had another distinction, he’s been wanted for sentencing on a scam that was uncovered about 15 years ago involving the bilking of investors out of millions for a scheme reselling latex gloves from China. Anyway, the way I see it, he was hoping Hillary Clinton would get elected, where 70% of his contributions went, and then he’d get pardoned for the scamming crime he was convicted of 15 years ago… so I can understand the political donations in that case, but I don’t really understand political donations in the grander scheme. Why would someone give thousands of dollars of their own hard earned money to elect someone in office if they really get very little direct benefit?
Okay, I’ll be honest, I’m feigning ignorance here (I do know why people do it) but would someone please explain the benefit of donating to political parties?
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5 Comments - Share Your Thoughts
It’s called “graft.” The more you donate, the more likely you (or your lobbyist) are to get access to the elected representative when you have some cause you want the person to support.
They say you get as much justice as you can afford. Similarly, you get as much political representation as you can afford…. That’s why large corporations and wealthy individuals will donate, in the same race, to candidates who are running against each other.
The good reason for making political donations is that the money to run political parties has to come from somewhere and better from the ordinary joe than a corrupting business man. Fortunately for me, I’m not sufficiently in agreement with any of our political parties that I want to donate money or time to them.
Ideally it’s because you think s/he will make the world a much better place.
Or it’s because you hope they’ll enact laws favorable to your kind of business.
I don’t do it. If I’m going to give, there’s people who need my money more.
Yeah, I’m with Mrs. Micah on this. I don’t often donate as I generally can’t stand politicians, but I donated to Kerry’s campaign in 2004, because I thought he would be better than the current option for the US and for the World…
It might not be right that politicians who raise more money have a better chance of being elected, but it is the case. And ultimately politicians have a huge effect on how things operate.
Politicians have an enormous impact on our daily lives. They decide what kind of schools our kids go to, what laws we must live with, if our library books get to be tracked like Communist Russia, what wars we send our men and women to die for, I mean the list is endless.
Democracy doesn’t work so well if the most active participants are the politicians, not the people. Everything from attending community board meetings to voting in a Presidential election counts in my book. And in these days and times, yes it’s a heckuva lot of money to get elected to the White House. I’m not a fan of politicians, I doubt many of us are, and I don’t agree 100% with any party (but certainly disagree 99% with one!), but to choose apathy in our democracy negates the democracy, and we simply become those under rule. I’ll donate a little bit as the election nears.
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