Money Thay Was No Good but Trump Was Making This Money Good Again
Gail Collins
Guess Who Wants Your Money
Welcome to February! Any notable January accomplishments to report, people? Well, I received 266 email letters from Donald Trump, request for money. Gotta exist a lifetime achievement award in there somewhere.
"HAPPY New year's day, Friend," began i of his missives. (In this i-fashion correspondence, Trump always calls me Friend. The last time I saw him in person, he complained, "You've never been nice to me." But apparently in fund-raisingville, we're best pals.)
"You've always been i of my BIGGEST supporters," he added with grace and stupendous inaccuracy, "which is why I want You to be our VERY Starting time DONOR of 2022." I got this particular message on January. 26, which makes it highly unlikely that the commencement spot was withal open up, although 1 tin can hope.
About 60 of my Trump fund-raising emails were signed by one of his sons. Decorated male child, Don Jr. He besides just co-founded his own publishing imprint, which reportedly gave Dad a multimillion-dollar accelerate for "Our Journey Together," a photo book for which, Inferior said, our former president "wrote all the captions, including some by hand."
The profits from the book could presumably go to help defray the costs of defending Trump in the multitudinous lawsuits filed against him for everything from misusing inauguration funds to inciting the Jan. 6 anarchism in Washington. Of course, he's already sitting on a cushion of virtually $122 million in political donations, and then an firsthand autumn into pauperism seems unlikely.
And if all else fails they've got Melania'south hat, which was bachelor to a fan of historical fashion for a mere $250,000.
At present some of you may take managed to avert the Trump email listing but are still being barraged past tons of requests for donations from candidates for the Senate, Business firm, governor and so on. Feel free to read them.
You're going to desire to support expert people who are actually running for office. Detect someone you like and send a contribution. Otherwise the folks who get elected are going to be sworn into their new jobs believing that all their success is due to the generosity of extremely rich people and lobbyists.
According to my deeply unscientific inquiry, Beto O'Rourke, the Texas gubernatorial hopeful, is 1 of the emailing champs on this forepart. And I'thousand certain a lot of you lot have heard from Nancy Pelosi, who's collecting greenbacks for the House Democratic team and gets points for her talent at raising alarm about fund-raising successes on the other side. ("My heart is racing, Gail. …")
This week'southward award for artistic nagging for money is still pending, merely my current favorite is John Fetterman, the Autonomous lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, who's running for the Senate seat existence vacated past Republican Pat Toomey.
"Gail, Today the world'due south most famous groundhog and Pennsylvania hero, Punxsutawney Phil, predicted six more weeks of winter. No matter to me (I'chiliad only gonna keep wearing shorts) but I figured you could use some good news," he wrote.
Y'all will notice Fetterman's team has gotten my name. And at least on my electronic mail listing, he was the first to clock in with a Groundhog Day connection. I estimate he wanted to remind everybody that he wore shorts when he greeted President Biden at the site of that collapsed Pennsylvania bridge. Too, of class, to tack on a tiny notation suggesting a $five donation.
I got 35 emails from Fetterman in January. Points for perseverance or penalties for pestiness?
Daniel Weiner of the Brennan Center's Elections and Regime Programme told me last year that he'd spent Thanksgiving listening to his relatives mutter about the deluge of fund-raising emails they were getting. Now he reports that in preparing to welcome in a new year, he spent three hours in the kitchen with his female parent, trying to clear out the flood of pleas she's getting past text.
(Did you know that you tin can donate to political campaigns via text these days? Authorized, Weiner said, by the Federal Election Committee "in one of its rare acts of doing something.")
Weiner didn't accept fourth dimension to as well tackle his female parent's e-mail deluge on his visit. "Simply I'thou certain I'll spend Passover bent over her phone," he sighed.
By the style, all requests for money are supposed to exist accompanied by a little spot you lot can click to discontinue the correspondence. But experts say your tormentors will but become your address back from another mailing list.
"In one case politicians have your name, they're going to sell it," said Rick Hasen, a professor at the Academy of California, Irvine, who keeps track of these things.
Oh well. Nobody ever said democracy came cheap.
One of my favorite parts of the Trump letters is his soulful assurance that he gets up every day hoping he'll finally be hearing from his great friend Friend, only to take his heart broken once again.
"This will be the trip of a lifetime, Friend, and I can't think of anyone else I'd rather take there with me," Trump wrote on Tuesday, promising a visit to Mar-a-Lago to the winner of a special donor contest. "I've asked to see the next list of entries TOMORROW, and I don't want to become another list without Friend on it."
Gee, it sounds similar he'south been dwelling on this mean solar day and night. Amazing he can find the time to run around the land claiming the election was stolen.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/opinion/trump-campaign-fundraising.html
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