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You're not giving the max ($2700 for primary, $2700 for general) each election and gathering up a dozen people who give $1,000+ donations. This would likely be

• eropple 10y ago
  Yup. $2700 for a primary, $2700 for a general election. Now consider how much of the country could conceivably throw $5400 at something like that without significant sacrifice, and "elite" starts to make a lot more sense.
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    The elites in terms of expenditure-driven political influence are people whose expenditures far exceed the legal limit on direct donations (because they'll do that for more than one candidate in a cycle, plus giving money to entities like the party congressional/senate campaign committees, and the party national committees, and politically active interest groups, interest group PACs, and candidate- and issue-focused SuperPACs, and, in some cases, carefully structuring transactions to give goods and services directly to candidates and office holders while skirting bribery and corruption laws.)
    • eropple 10y ago
      I'm well aware, thank you. But if you max out your average Congressman and ask for a meeting, you get it. You will be invited to events--including ones that are not donation-expected for years after the fact, and your congressman will almost certainly know you by name, if not face. This is not a great system, but many tech workers can get into that circle if it's something that matters to them.