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Scott Walker Rents Out Email and Donor Lists To Pay Campaign Debt (wisconsingazette.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In an effort to pay off his hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt racked up from his failed presidential run, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is renting out his email and donor lists to other candidates. Wisconsin Gazette reports: "The campaign owed $1.2 million at the end of 2015 and has paid off about $308,000 since then, according to campaign finance records. The bulk of those payments have been made possible by income from Granite Lists, a New Hampshire-based company that rents out Republican donor lists. Granite Lists has paid more than $172,000 to Walker's campaign since it ended in September. In April alone, Granite Lists brought the campaign nearly $50,000, comprising most of the total $70,930 the campaign brought in that month. In addition to flat-rate charges, candidates can set up revenue-sharing agreements, where some of the proceeds they obtain from donors are diverted back to the list owner. Candidates can also pay a flat rate of $10,500 to email Walker's entire 675,000-person email list and $7,000 to email the 225,000 donors and presidential sign-ups, according to Granite Lists website. [Granite Lists] calls Walker's donor file 'one of the hottest donor lists to hit the market in years.'"
Sure, as long as you get the X signatures required to be recognized as an official candidate.
The simplest way to reform the American political process would be to fund campaigns with tax money.
There are two ways to do this, and neither is acceptable:
1. Give most of the funding to incumbents and major parties, which helps lock-in the status quo.
2. Give equal money to challengers, which means David Duke gets funded with tax dollars, along with every other kook who registers to run.
Currently we have a hybrid system where candidates get matching funds for what they raise privately. There is little political will to go any further.
That's exactly the way it works. With enough signatures, anybody can get on the ballot. The money angle is bullshit. Money has more influence on the voter than the politician. It's being spent to convince everyone to vote 'correctly' to make sure the *right lizard* gets in. And with 98% compliance, it is an outstanding success. It is the voters who give power to money. You could vote for, say, the Greens, and turn all the other guy's money into confetti. The choice is yours, not theirs.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Note however that fact doesn't make Scott Walker a scumbag - because he is - he's just not a scumbag for this.
I generally don't believe in charity, I believe in changing the system that created the need for charity in the first place.
Granted I will fully admit that its a bit of a Marxist view, But you can't give with the right hand, what you toke with the left hand, its a fundamentally uneven exchange.
Sure I could take that $27 dollars and feed a couple homeless people for a day, or I could spend that on changing the system that created the inequality that created those homeless people in the first place.
Government provided access to health care/mental health care, low education jobs, Education, and housing programs will do much more then a single food/money donation ever could.