

The Big Donors - brandonhall
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/10/politics/big-donors/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

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hkmurakami
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.

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mynameishere
[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?

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bajsejohannes
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.

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hkmurakami
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?

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gggggggg
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.

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eupharis
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.)

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hkmurakami
_> 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.

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littlegiantcap
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.

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w1ntermute
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...](http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-
november-7-2012/post-democalypse-2012---america-takes-a-shower---fox-news-
meltdown)

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

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

