Hillary For President

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by sheltiedave

Nor'easter, the favor might be a personal one, a public good being sought, or a business favor, now or in the future. Regardless, I don't know anyone who donates significant amounts of money in a vacuum, out of the goodness in their hearts.

Donations are made to secure access, establish relationships, and allow for a form of influence, if not outright favor.

I prefer to be acknowledged as the god of the north wind, thank you. And I agree that the number of people who contribute large sums to political campaigns in the expectation of some sort of favoritism dwarfs the number of those doing it altruistically. I just think it takes the argument right up to the edge of being a reductio ad absurdum to claim it as "fact" that everyone does.

I'm sure we can all think of people who have donated massively to one politician or another without the expectation of a quid pro quo or favorable treatment of some kind. For instance, Bill Maher donated a million dollars to Obama's campaign and never even got to do the Correspondents' Dinner.