Well, isn’t this a nice problem to have?
“An unusual request has gone out to wealthy donors writing large checks to support former Florida governor Jeb Bush: Please don’t give more than $1 million right away,” the Washington Post reports.
“”The move reflects concerns among Bush advisers that accepting massive sums from a handful of uber-rich supporters could fuel a perception that the former governor is in their debt. The effort is also driven by a desire to build as broad a pool of donors as possible among wealthier contributors.”
Can you imagine any of the other Republican contenders making a similar request?
Try to picture Rick Santorum turning down a $1.1 million contribution. “Thanks, buddy, but please keep that last hundred thou. I don’t want it to look like I owe you.”
I doubt Jeb is going to fool anyone with this. He’s a Bush. That’s how he’ll be judged.
Can you imagine any of the other Republican contenders making a similar request?
Of course not. But as you imply, Bush is only doing this as a self-serving gesture to try and stand out from the rest of the GOP. So it’s a hollow gesture only meant to fool the corporate media.
Can you imagine any of the other Republican contenders making a similar request?
All of them would if they could. Their problem is that they only need their fingers and not a humongous rolodex to tally their gazillionaire BFFs.
Right. But think of 8 months from now. Jebster will need a way to differentiate himself, since he’s just as bat guano crazy as the rest of them. The corporate media will lap this up and ignore how Jebbie is doing this as a cynical ploy.
Within eight months, it will have served its purpose with the intended audience, GOP wannabe POTUS candidates. To scare them off because they don’t and can’t get a roster of the big-bucks-daddys standing behind them. Won’t scare Paul because he has his daddy’s legion of neo-libertarian-racist-dickwads regularly coughing up a hundred or so dollars, and like his daddy won’t waste a lot of the cash on expensive campaign pros. Won’t scare Walker because he believes that his daddy is the biggest and bestest of all and the baggers will never let him down should he intermittently run out of campaign cash.
Because giving “only” a million dollars means he’s not in their debt?
Everybody knows that quid pro quo only begins with the first dollar over one million. Up to one million is a gift of love.
In the circles he’s addressing, it’s pocket change.
I was going to stagger my multi-million donation over a few months anyway – my accountants tell me its more tax efficient that way and I want to have a few one-to-ones with Jeb in the meantime. I find candidates are more helpful when they know there’s more in the pipeline…and it’s not as if Jeb needs it all in one lump sum right now. But thanks for the consideration anyway Jeb, I like to keep my cash flow running smoothly, and anything over a Million would have knocked a hole in my monthly budget.
This is like a rich kid telling his Grandmother that he doesn’t need $10,000 for his birthday.
She can give him $5,000 now – and, an unlimited amount later for Christmas
I feel as nauseous now as I did when W was anointed President.
What I love most about this is the open acknowledgement that there is some way to properly “manage” the “perception that [Jeb!] is in their debt” just because he has/will receive X multiple millions from X number of plutocrats. In other words, if the ocean of bribery cashola is simply siphoned to Jeb properly, the American rubes won’t think anything is amiss, haha.
Now of course the polls all indicate that most people answering pollsters are “disturbed” about our hopelessly polluted elections and system. But this apparent concern does not remotely affect their actual votes when elections roll around; instead white identity is now the crucial criteria in voting.
I often think that if today’s Supreme Court has properly divined the meaning of our constitution, then that document is as democratically disastrous as any founding document could be. Our constitution apparently envisions a nation awash in high powered weaponry and personal home arsenals, with plutocrats and corporate CEOs having a constitutional right to throw elections by unlimited spending in any state or federal race they deem desirable. States may suppress the votes of any demographic they wish for admittedly false and baseless “reasons”, and Congress has no power to protect minority voting, even through statutes passed almost unanimously. And obviously Congress had no power to pass national health insurance regulation under the interstate commerce clause.
If this is indeed the proper meaning of the constitution, it was just a matter of time before we became a failed state and the only remarkable thing is that the country functioned as long as it did. The “conservative” constitution is quite an ugly document, and it has brought forth a very ugly nation.