The Big Donors | Hacker News Reader

The Big Donors

cnn.com

36 pointsbrandonhall13 comments

I was rather surprised to see Peter Thiel listed at $4.735MM in Republican contributions, until I clicked the details which read:

This young billionaire Libertarian was the major donor behind the super PAC that backed Ron Paul.

And it now makes sense.

Edit: Also, a fun factoid is that the Rentec founder, James Simons, gave to the Democratic Party while the current co-CEO, Robert Mercer, gave to the Republican Party.

[The unspoken] on top of both parties.

Oh, well. One funny thing about US politics is just how damn cheap American corruption is. They spend millions of dollars and get billions in return. And we're supposed to be upset about the millions?

So the common notion seems to be that these money makes the parties owe somthing to the donors. But if that's the case, why aren't we seeing anyone on this list donating to both parties? I'm asking sincererly, as that's what I would do if I had $50M and needed a law passed. Better buy a guaranteed -- though maybe slightly moderated -- law change for $25M from both parties than a risk of losing it all with no result.

i am not an american so i dont know too much about your election campaigns, but maybe these people did not donate just for personal advantage reasons.

Well for someone like Adelson, he's dead convinced that President Obama has passed laws unfavorable to him and will continue to do so, so I don't think giving to both parties would have made much sense to him. It looks to me that a lot of these people are similarly simply ideologically aligned with whichever party already.

Perhaps the situation may be different for corporations though?

I am not from US, is it normal for Republicans to give so much (large amounts) compared to Democratics?

It looks like BO rally had to work harder for his money compared to MR.

BO did work very hard for the money, especially considering he was an incumbent president. I remember hearing some things about how this was the first time an incumbent president was outraised by his opponent. Incumbents have a staggering advantage in US politics. Looking forward to seeing how the final fundraising figures come out. (Google is not yielding immediate results for this question yet.)

On the tech side, the Obama campaign was pure genius. For example, they figured out that $7 was the sweet spot when they sent an email to my friend asking for money. And of course it was a seamless, one-click give, technologically perfect with no friction involved. He would just think "ok" and click the give button. He was flabbergasted on election day when they sent him a receipt saying he had given $399 over the course of the campaign.

And yes, it is normal for individuals and corporations to give more individually to Republicans. The economic case is more direct. If electing a Republican will lower your tax bill (or prevent it from rising) by $100 million dollars, then giving $1 million dollars can make a lot of business sense.

It's much harder to make the case that investing in things like education and healthcare will result in much larger economic growth for the country overall, and thus produce bigger gains for all in the long term. (Full disclosure: I think this is true.)

>I remember hearing some things about how this was the first time an incumbent president was outraised by his opponent.

Is this including the Super-PACs or the candidates themselves? I was under the impression that President Obama out fundraised Governor Romney by a significant margin, and that it was the Republican Party and its supporting Super-PACs that allowed Governor Romney to close the gap.

Yes, typically, the Republicans collect more at the federal level. Local races are different, and there's a mix.

Dems generally get many more small donations, and that's why the bundlers category is full of Dems.

Does this include money donated during the primaries? If so, it could be a huge difference between money spent in the general election vs general election+primaries.

Yes, as explained by Jon Stewart[0], Sheldon Adelson, the top Republican donor, poured a ton of money into the primary campaign to smear Romney. Or as Stewart put it, "This election wasn't murder. It was auto-unerotic asphyxiation."

0: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-7-2012/post-d...

Considering all the complaining he's done, I'm surprised not to see Donald Trump on the list.

/r/politics is down, or will we just see non-geeky usa election links every day for the next year?

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