The Summit

Money's The Key to Elected Office

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 By Amram Gainer

Vote for me, He is the man you want to lead America. A big part of any political election is campaigning. Political candidates use campaigning to persuade registered voters. While campaigning is a good way to get your name out to the people, it’s a very complex and expensive thing to do. Most campaigns for offices of any kind cost millions of dollars. Whenever a candidate is ready to throw his hat into the ring, he/she has to ask the important question of “How am I going to pay for this?” Political action committees, small donors, individual large donors, and their own personal funds are ways that candidates pay for their campaign. Candidates talk about how much their small donors have contributed, but usually the big donors who pay for their elections. PACs are organizations that support candidates by using their money to advertise their preferred candidates and sometimes place ads against the ones they want to lose. PACs have been around since 1944. These groups are started by different businesses and labor groups, but the funds can be donated from individuals working for that group or other random individuals, but can’t be from the business or organization’s personal treasury. PACs are good for supporting a candidate, but can only donate $5,000 to a candidate for each election, no matter what kind it is. There are many rules for PACs about how much money they can spend or receive. PACs also have to let information about who has been donating be made public. SuperPACs are completely different in the fact that they are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money and receive unlimited amounts of money. SuperPACs are formed by simply adding a cover letter to a PAC. The cover letter has to say that the PAC should be a SuperPAC. A big difference between PACs and SuperPACs is the amount of money each of them can accept and spend. While things like PACs and SuperPACs seem to have a lot of influence in politics, politicians and candidates have other ways of making themselves known to the public. Many candidates turn to social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. In this new digital age, candidates can reach out to the younger voters with communication they are used to. Making appearances on television news networks have been a common way for politicians to become known to the public. Some politicians might hold press conferences to let the public know about their plan once they win office. Although if you’re going show up on national television, You should make sure you can speak well. Using the wrong word, or saying something offensive can turn a perfectly good chance to exposure, into the worst kind of publicity you could wish for. Campaigning for any kind of office won’t be an easy process, it takes a lot of money, and even a good amount of showmanship. It’s all about making yourself known in a positive light.