Quite an experience today. I went to a “meet the candidates” event and talked with a few voters. While there I ran into a flunkie for a prominent elected official. In a fairly brief conversation, the flunkie offered to help me raise money for my campaign. The offer seemed genuine and I suspect this person would indeed be able to help me raise significant money.
However, I am quite confident that the motives for helping me are the wrong motives. This is not to help me in my campaign, but rather to get back at someone else. Combined with my strong feelings of dislike for the official, this was quite unpleasant. I was quite clear in rejecting the help. As I told my wife and also a close friend, I would never be able to wash myself enough. My wife tells me this is why I’ll never make it as a politician. I’d rather earn money in my law practice and other business ventures and spend some of my own money the next time.
I’m not opposed to soliciting campaign contributions, by the way. I see nothing wrong with it at all. Maybe I should think about it. My gut is that it couldn’t be enough to make my campaign a winner — it would have to be more than $500K, and I don’t think that’s possible. How much money would this official have to raise for me before it would be worth it? Comments appreciated.
