• Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com
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    15 hours ago

    Was your argument that “democrats have to spend some money”? The position that would be arguing against is that others believe they spend no money.

    Not trying to build strawmen, I’m just genuinely confused. No-one is saying they spend no money, or court any donations. Which is why I, and seemingly the person you were having a discussion with, thought you meant most money.

    Because of citizens united…

    part interests me. Before citizens united were parties forbidden from spending money?


    Edit to answer your question:

    How do we win without doners?

    They don’t. But, because we’ve established they don’t need the most money to win they can be more selective in their choices. Taking donations from oil companies at the cost of votes, bad plan. Taking donations from genocidal governments at the cost of votes, bad plan. Promise voters that you’ll level wealth inequality at the cost of money, good plan. They don’t need all the money.

    • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Before citizens united were parties forbidden from spending money?

      They were pretty limited because donors have a maximum donation amount, so once you’re maxed that’s it.

      Unless you’re a PAC then as long as you follow some rules, people can donate as much as they like to the PAC and the PAC can use that money to do basically everything a normal campaign organization would do…all legal because of citizens united.

      • Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        The rules are poorly written and even more poorly enforced.

        Coordinate with a candidate before they announce their candidacy?

        Pass

        Coordinate with an individual who is then hired as an advisor to the candidate?

        Pass

        Coordinate with the children / spouse of an incumbent candidate?

        Pass

        Coordinate with the candidate themselves through means that prevent detection?

        Pass

        Coordinate with a candidate explicitly in broad daylight while making no attempt to hide it and leave a paper trail, electronic records, notarized documents, and a plan to do so again in the future and market your services doing so to other candidates?

        Candidate elected; you are at a sub 1% chance to be charged with a misdemeanor if investigated by the DoJ because the FEC can’t be arsed

      • Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com
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        15 hours ago

        I answered the question in an edit for the sake of fairness. Tldr: they don’t. The doners don’t need to cost votes.

        I don’t see the relevance. So long as people aren’t saying they spend no money, which they didn’t, why bring it up? It still implies a “most money” argument to me.

        Edit: I don’t read usernames and it bites me everytime