Republicans Are Buying Campaign Donors

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

As a person who has had a long-standing interest in politics, I have heard of attempts of candidates to buy elections, and, indeed, have seen instances where that appears to be what has happened.  Lots of rich people seem to think that their money somehow entitles them to hold positions of political leadership, and since the US Supreme Court has ruled that money is a form of speech and must be granted the right to express itself, the rich now have voices which can be more easily heard above those of us mere mortals.

Having plenty of money not only spreads the speech of candidates further, it also makes it much louder.

But this election year the power of money is playing out with greater flexibility in the election process. One of the requirements that Republican presidential candidates must meet in order to "earn" a coveted spot on their party's national debate stage, is to have a minimum number of individual donors to a candidate's campaign.  In order to secure a spot on the stage, a candidate must initially have 40,000 unique donors with at least 200 coming from twenty individual states.  The amount that donors need to give to a campaign can be as little as one dollar each.

And, leave it to Republicans to find a way to pollute that process.  Some of the candidates are actually out purchasing donors or offering incentives to people who cough up a dollar.

Francis Suarez, the GOP mayor of Miami, Florida, and presidential contender, has a sweepstakes in which donors can win front row seats to a big soccer match in his city.  Rich man Vivek Ramaswamy, another GOP presidential candidate, has a program where he will allow people who collect donations for him to keep ten percent of what they collect.  And another rich man, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, has set aside 50,000 twenty-dollar gift cards which he will dole out to "donors" who give his campaign at least one dollar.  One dollar for twenty is a pretty damned good return on your investment!  (In theory, Burgum could spend one million dollars to purchase a mere $50,000 in donations!)

The Federal Elections Commission may eventually come out against some of these donor-buying schemes, but for the time-being they are operational and serve as more examples of Republicans subverting democracy.

Where there's a will, there's a sleazy shortcut!