Gates & Allen - voting with their wallets

[worker201]

Who are Seattle's two filthy richest backing for president? With less than two months to go, Bill Gates and Paul Allen aren't clearly tipping their hands. Gates has given John McCain $2,500

[Lead Head]

By most standards, just how large are those donations?

[worker201]

Hard to tell.  The maximum for a single person is $2300 per election per candidate, with primaries and general elections counted separately.  So the most a single person could donate to Obama (for example) would be $4600.  However, campaign contributions can be bundled, so that $2000 Gates gave Bush in '03 could have been reported as $1000 from Bill and $1000 from Melinda.  Most private contributors, though, only support a single candidate - these guys are supporting candidates in presidential, congressional, and state elections.  All things considered, I think most of these donations are more philanthropical than devious - Gates and Allen are not trying to buy themselves congressmen.  Rather, they are trying to guide the overall political direction of their homes, which is what rich people who no longer need the money are able to do.

[Lead Head]

Hmm. Interesting information, I did not know about the maximum donation limit per person.

[WMD]

Yeah.  Oddly enough, I think McCain is partially responsible for that limit.

[worker201]

Yes, the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.  Prior to that act, the limit was $1000, they raised it to $2000.  The current level of $2300 is adjusted for inflation, to give you some idea of how the economy has done in the last 6 years.  The goal of the act was to curb previously unregulated donations, which they balanced with an increase in regulated donations.  The effects of the act are invisible to the public, as McCain and Obama have raised way more money than Bush and Gore did.

A byproduct of the act was the abolishment of the issues ad, which is an ad by a partisan group endorsing a particular candidate - these cannot be run within 60 days of an election.  Also, the "I'm George Bush and I approve this message" became standard practice because of the act.

[Lead Head]

Interesting, also didn't know that 3rd parties could also run ads for the candidates

[davidnix71]

Even Bill Gates didn't have enough money to bail out Seattle-based Washington Mutual.

JP Morgan Chase could buy him out with petty cash and write it all off. If WaMu had failed that would have had a bigger effect on the next election than Gates donations.

[worker201]

Interesting, also didn't know that 3rd parties could also run ads for the candidates

If you had $200,000 and a video camera, you could make a political ad too.  Except we are now less than 60 days from the election.

[Orethrius]

If you had $200,000 and a video camera, you could make a political ad too.  Except we are now less than 60 days from the election.

Funny - looks like someone forgot to tell YouTube.

[worker201]

If it costs 200k to put something on YouTube, I think it's about time to shut that place down.

[fishcorn]

He's probably leaning more left this time because Seinfeld's been influencing him while they were hanging out in shoe stores together.

[Lead Head]

If it costs 200k to put something on YouTube, I think it's about time to shut that place down.

You can actually set google adsense to plug into your youtube videos, and get paid based on the views of your videos. Pretty slick.