Thomas Frank Quotes

It is not that candidates who get the most money win, but that winning candidates get the most money.

Campaign contributors are operating vicariously through the power of their purse rather than through the power of their ideas.

The donor party is the 2 million people who contribute more than $5000 to political candidates. Unless you are elected by the donor party, you cannot run for major office.

In a political contest, the use of some [money] is both right, and indispensable.

Money is the mother's milk of everything, and it certainly is the mother's milk of politics.

According to Breitbart, data from the Federal Election Commission show that Facebook staff gave $114,000 to Hillary Clinton. The next-closest recipient of political money was former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. He only got $16,604.

If you look at the funding of far-right parties in Europe - where's the money coming? We do know that 9 million euros was given by Russia, through a Czech bank, to [French National Front leader] Marine Le Pen. We know that this is not an isolated case. This is happening elsewhere.

Donald Trump talks about how he's not going to be controlled by the moneyed interests. Do people understand that he's not giving money to his campaign, he's loaning it because he expects to get money back from those same big donors he decries right now? He's planning on running a general election based upon raising money from those very people.

Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign they're not really the establishment. I can't obviously speak for Senator Bernie Sanders or about Planned Parenthood. But what we do see, and we've seen for years in America, is that the establishment, that is, the big banks and the executives and the wealthy do support a lot of non-profits and make the non-profits basically walk to the tune of the establishment.

It will be almost impossible for any other candidate to raise the money that the Clintons can raise.

Online fundraising is so important to the Democratic Party.

Political battles are won when the rich favor them.

The money part is one of the most difficult things. Coppola always said I should do a tango movie. If it hadn't been for him, I don't know where we would have gotten the money.

In the future, people will blame the Eighties for all societal ills in the same way that people have previously blamed the Sixties. The various Thatcherite Big Bangs - monetarism, deregulation, libertarianism - have been working their way through the culture ever since.

The idea is that angel investors are supposed to be wealthy people supporting people who need funds, typically who are not wealthy, and don't have the ability to do it themselves.

Many athletes competing in Atlanta wouldn't be here if it weren't for corporate support.

The question now is does Obama have any hope of raising money? I don't think he'll raise it out of the New York people, I don't think he's going to raise it out the Hollywood people, so where's the money going to come from for Barack Obama?

Many of these [big political] donors are my friends. Those people are not like charities ... They Want. These are total tough cookies. When they give millions and millions of dollars, they're not doing it for the good of the American Cancer Society. They're doing it for themselves.

Rule of Dark Matter: SuperPAC dollars cannot be seen by most voters but account for most of the money in this universe.

Five years ago, the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision in the Citizens United case told the richest people in America, "You already control the economy of the country. We are now going to let you control the political system as well".

Political reform need not go hand in hand with economic liberalization. I do not believe that if you are libertarian, full of diverse opinions, full of competing ideas in the market place, full of sound and fury, therefore you will succeed.

The cost of fielding a candidate has become so astronomical that the concept of a people’s candidate is just an abstraction.

You ought to spread campaign contributions around so that you're not beholden to any one contributing group.

The way you have to campaign in this country is you have to beg for money from the very people who need to be brought under control.

You don’t get campaign contributions just because it’s a philanthropic endeavor.