The Grifter

  Although my GOP bracket went to hell in a hand basket, and rather quickly, there were some things I got right.
    When I put Ben Carson on the list of  candidates who were "in it for the money" I couldn't have hit the nail more squarely, in fact, I greatly underestimated his prowess as a grifter.
    Ben raised about $58M for his campaign, $27M in the last quarter alone and by the end of Feb. he was broke. While running a campaign can be expensive most of Bens money never made it onto the campaign trail. He never opened offices in Iowa or New Hampshire and simply relied on his appearances. Sure he bought some hats and t-shirts( ($600,000) and spent some some money on travel and lodging (about $2M). He even bought some balloons ($50) and a couple of books $74.25)
    His biggest expenditures? Digital media and web services ($10M), printing and postage ($7M), and fundraising phone calls ($2.4M). While fundraising is important, most campaigns spend about 10% of their coffers for it, Ben spent 56% of the money he raised to raise more money.
Action Mailers $4.5M
CMDI $1.4M
Direct Advantage $3M
Eleventry Marketing $4.8M
Infocision $2.4
TMA Direct $2.9M
    These were expenditures just in the last quarter of 2015. Two of these companies are owned by members of his campaign staff and another, Infocision, has been in trouble here in Ohio for preying on the elderly for charitable contributions.
    So what was in it for Ben? He fund raised he spent it and fund raised and spent it, and he went home broke. You can't take the money you fleeced from people who trusted you and just stick it in your pocket, we have laws against that. But we don't have laws against lists.
    Back to that $58M Ben raised, 58% of that came from small individual donors. People sending him $20. or $50., up to $200. to be considered a small donor. And those people in return get put on "the the donor list". And Ben can do whatever he wants with that list of donors. It just so happens that there are people out there that will pay good money for those lists, $5 to $6 a head. Who knew! So a list of donors totaling a million names or so is worth a pretty good chunk of change. Not a bad payday for traveling the country pretending you want to be President.
    Today the good Christian doctor endorsed Donald Trump. The grifters icing on the cake.
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https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00036973
http://docquery.fec.gov/pres/2015/YE/C00573519/B_PURPOSE_C00573519.html
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/03/03/19393/ben-carsons-small-dollar-donors-could-keep-yielding-big-money


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