Donor Influence Quotes

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.

When laws are literally written now to make donors happy, we've got a problem.

Money and donations are an important part of our political system. They are hard power.

A lot of Ivy League schools have presidents who are very politically active. And I don't think it has an impact on whether a student chooses a school or a donor gives to a school.

We would see another president being accused of being illegitimate, and undermined from day one, which is exactly what these donors did to [Barack] Obama.

You will agree that the Duke Lacrosse team raped and damaged or whatever, even though it didn't happen. You will be made to agree. You will understand that there is going to be amnesty and you will love it and you will stop speaking out against it. And until you do, you are in our crosshairs. It's who they are. That is the modern-day Democrat Party, and certainly that is the attitude of their major donors.

That's why they're in the problem - having the problem they're having. They're not conservative. They're being run by their donors.

No politician ever admits where all his money comes from.

This year [2016] we're seeing a really strange upending [of the party]. The money was coming from these super-wealthy donors who were really on the far, hard right, people like the Kochs. So the party and the candidates moved so far to the right that a lot of people who don't share their point of view were unhappy.

Believe it or not, there are members of Congress who actually want to govern and get stuff done. Unfortunately, there are others whose agendas and strategies serve to advance their own interests and expand their donor base.

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.

Those of us in positions of responsibility, we'll need to be less concerned with the judgment of special interests and well-connected donors, and more concerned with the judgment of posterity.

There's no doubt, that if you were a Clinton Foundation donor and you wanted your calls returned, I have no doubt that people got their returned.

Western environmentalists might value their independence, but their organizations are largely donor driven, and if he wanted to, Putin could have a lot to donate.

Republicans are being loyal to their donors. They're being loyal to the paymasters, if you will. And it's squandering an opportunity.

What I saw during the Hillary Clinton campaign [2016] with data dummies who were more concerned with polls than people, they were more concerned with donors than voters. And it wasn't a lot of heart felt on that campaign and I think it left us vulnerable.

If I take donations from Big Corporates to fund our election campaign, I'll be accountable to them and would have to do what they tell me to do after winning elections. But if I take donations from common people to fund our Election Campaign, after winning, I'll be accountable to them

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

While Hillary Clinton meets only with donors and lobbyists, my plan was crafted with the input from Federal Immigration offices, very great people.

Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.

The problem is we have a Wall Street-to-Washington access of power that has controlled the political climate. The donor class feeds the political class who does the dance that the donor class wants. And the result is federal government keeps getting bigger.

There was loose talk of Enron management practices and reminders of a scandal at the University of Toronto, when a big donor corporation, Eli Lilly, was said to have vetoed the appointment of an academic who doubted the effectiveness of Prozac.

I'm going to fight for every person in America who believes government should serve the people, not the donors and not the special interests.

The Republicans don't want Donald Trump to define the Republican Party agenda. They are very loyal. They owe a lot to their donors. The donors hate Trump. The Chamber of Commerce hates Trump. All of these people that the Republicans think they can't get elected without don't like Trump. So it has been a stonewall. This behavior by the House and Senate Republican leadership isn't anything new. All you had to do was to listen what they were saying during the campaign.

If you take donations from Wall Street, you can't be independent.