Give Like A Billionaire – Protecting The Power Of Their Purse: How Billionaires Obscure Contributions And Command Influence
Cute videos have peppered the website of Steve Zimmer’s opponents claiming to be shocked at the suggestion that big money is sloshing about the LAUSD4 school board race. ‘We’re just aw-shucks folks in the face of the Big Bad Union…’ goes that canard.
Well that’s basically shocked-shocked since it’s hardly news that Zimmer’s opponents are some of the richest people in America. Eli Broad, whom everyone’s familiar with as the architect of the “your-schools-suck-so-I-think-we-should-just-sell-half-of-them-down-the-river-to-my-pals-you-won’t-notice-much-plan”, is America’s 58th-richest bloke, but he’s not the only billionaire backer of the anti-Zimmer alliance.
Melvoin’s personal campaign donations pile has hidden among its heaps 6 such billionaires; Pohill’s a mere singular one {Arnold, Bloomberg, Broad, Karsh, Marks, Schusterman; Broad donated to Polhill as well}. Zimmer’s, well, ahem, not-so-much. He’s kinda left out in the cold by that big bad Union composed of … you and me.
As of last week Melvoin had 3x the maximum contributors as the others. He may have lots of littler contributions, but some of those are setup through handy-dandy monthly contributions just like your public radio station manages with its paid staff. This sort of snazzy, hyper-organized process for raking in the dough relatively painlessly is brought to you by some big-bucks, high-priced, professional campaign coordinators and PR consultancies. Their websites are a lot of fun to peruse and as a special bonus you’ll recognize a parade of “grassroots parent” organizations there too. Just like the one powering Zimmer’s opposition’s campaigns. It’s a little humbling to contemplate how much us just-parents need corralling by such slick, expensive, organization.
Which makes sense because when I try to arrange tshirts for my daughter’s extracurriculars (i) we can’t afford it and (ii) the effort just about kills everyone. Meanwhile every time you turn around Charter Schools are closing their doors so color-coordinated protestors can chant in coordinated union – professional organizers are so awesome to contemplate. That’s the kind of Union Charter-School-Corporates can really get behind: the sort that gins up GDP with tshirt purchases.
And so it’s empirically true that Zimmer’s campaign is being swamped out by billionaires’ money from beyond. Here’s how it’s done:Give Like A Billionaire – Protecting The Power Of Their Purse: How Billionaires Obscure Contributions And Command Influence – redqueeninla:
