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Knowing how much home renovations cost, why would a megadonor stop at “tens of thousands of dollars”? Can you really buy a vote for that little?

• jandrese 4y ago
  Apparently yes. It's always surprising how cheaply our politicians have been bought.
  • threatofrain 4y ago
    The governor of Illinois tried to sell Obama’s senate seat for bargain bin prices.
• mikeyouse 4y ago
  He bought her house for almost $200k, spent tens of thousands of dollars on improvements, bought the house next door with the loud annoying neighbors and tore it down, bought two more houses on the street, fixed them up and sold them and doesn’t charge her rent to live there… basically gentrified her street.
  • alienthrowaway 4y ago
    He genteified *his street. He owns her home - at least on paper.
• hibikir 4y ago
  Always remember that the vote buying process is more about guaranteeing further alignment, instead of straight out buying. I can't imagine, for instance, Kagan receiving similar gifts, from similar donors, to make her vote with Thomas. I also don't think that some left wing billionaire could throw a million or two at Thomas and suddenly turn him into a swing voter. High brow political corruption everywhere is more about those small, marginal adjustments, which also lead to less obvious quid pro quo. It's not that your buddy renovated your house, so you pick his company in a government bid worth a few hundred million: He becomes your buddy first, and gives you smaller gifts, and when you are adequately aligned, bigger gifts keep getting exchanged. This is what makes the actual corruption always seem very cheap: It was never that huge a push, and the long term social component is always far more important than just the money.