Zhang Chen and Xiao Bushi had a meal for nearly two hours.

Both understood that this was only a preliminary contact, and many things were tacit. On the topic of war, Zhang Chen only stopped at the point, after all, there is still a long time, this is just a foreshadowing.

Xiao Bushi is a political figure, and this social activity is part of his daily life. During his gubernatorial campaign, he had breakfast, lunch, and dinner at different times, and meetings with various union representatives and community leaders alone filled his schedule.

In addition to these voter representatives who can directly bring him votes, social gatherings of truly influential bigwigs and tycoons in various industries are even more essential. It is these people who donate money to him and stand up for him, so that enough voters know his name, develop trust in him, and support him as governor.

You know, he only ran for the House of Representatives once 20 years ago, and he lost, let alone held any public office, and the company he built was also a mess, so he only bought a baseball team, which ran quite well, and in addition, his first 20 years of career can be said to have achieved nothing.

How can such a person gain the trust of the people if he does not have a leading figure to trust him in public?

The political election in the United States is very mature, even if he is the son of a former president, if there is no evangelical support, I am afraid that the gubernatorial primary will not pass.

Now that he is interested in participating in the next presidential election, of course, he must start preparing in advance, and the entertainment at this time is not only limited to Texas, but also to the whole country and cover a wider area.

The meeting was arranged by Condoleezza Rice, who had proposed to Bushstone before Matrix bought Apple, but Booth had always been a little careless about it.

After Rice got the upcoming Forbes rich list, Bush Jr. immediately asked Rice to arrange for him to meet Zhang Chen.

No way, it's so realistic.

On the one hand, Bushi has seen Zhang Chen's huge influence in the young people's vote base these days, and on the other hand, whether it has influence on voting or not, donations are the most important thing.

The current federal campaign law has strict restrictions on political donations, and after the 1972 federal campaign law was amended, each person can donate a maximum of $1,000, and at the same time, the specific information of donors is all public, and the income and expenditure are also completely disclosed, which to some extent solves the malpractice of large corporations manipulating elections with huge sums of money.

But in any country, there are policies and countermeasures, and in order to circumvent the provisions of the federal election law, "soft money" donations came into being.

Soft money is relative to hard money, and donations from individuals subject to federal campaign law are hard money, but federal campaign law can't always bind someone to voluntarily advertise their supporters, right?

For example, a wealthy man supported Crichton and set up a PAC (Political Action Committee), which is also subject to federal campaign laws, but can invest money without restrictions. As a result, the rich can put millions or even tens of millions of dollars into this PAC and use the money to advertise for Crichton's campaign.

This kind of advertising can't directly say who to vote for, so it becomes hard money and needs to be subject to campaign laws, but I can do negative advertising for my competitors, scold my competitor for being garbage, attack his private life, and play videos of him making a fool of himself on certain occasions repeatedly。。。。。。

In short, there are many means, only you can't think of it, and there is nothing you can't do.

In addition to PAC, there are many ways to circumvent the restrictions of federal campaign laws, such as donation bundlers, etc., often the amount of campaign funds announced in the general election is only the amount of hard money, as for soft money, it may be several times or even ten times the legal hard money.

Of course, Xiao Bushi hopes that Zhang Chen can build a PAC that supports him, and it would be great if he could invest millions in this PAC. But no matter how Xiao Bushi hinted, Zhang Chen always played Tai Chi and did not reply positively.

For politicians, the rejection of donations is already commonplace, and Xiao Bushi is not discouraged, anyway, it is only the first time to meet, and there will be opportunities in the future.

"Yes, I don't think the Democrats are wrong on all issues, such as health care, although I don't agree with Crichton's health care reform, but I support prescription drug health insurance for the elderly, reduce their health care costs, and education, oh, public education in the United States is really terrible, and we have to change that, the Democratic Party's education reform is just lip service, deceiving voters, the performance is really bad, if it continues like this, the future of the United States will be doomed. ”

"Abortion? Of course I'm against abortion, but I also agree that women should have their own choices, and I think it should be handled in a softer way. Like tax breaks for single mothers?"

"And then there's the tax cuts, and in the last election, Crichton's line was actually closer to the Republican Party, and he also proposed tax cuts, but it wasn't enough. The stage of the fastest development of the United States is the stage when the tax burden is the lowest, and now the tax burden in the United States is too high, and the high tax burden will not help solve social problems, but will reduce the competitiveness of the United States, which is a betrayal of the American spirit!"

。。。。。。

Since you want to raise money, you must make your campaign platform clear, the trend of this historical period is centrism, and Crichton was able to win the election because he was close to the Republican Party in many political positions, and similarly, if Bushstone wants to win the election, he must also be inclined to the position of the Democratic Party.

"Whatever you say, you have to be known and familiar with it by voters in order to win the election. "In the '92 election, Crichton raised more campaign money than my father, and more than half of it came from large donations. ”

Speaking of which, the topic comes back to donations.

Zhang Chen was noncommittal: "Mr. Bushi, I very much agree with some of your views. However, on the campaign trail, I do feel that there is a need to pay more attention to small donors. Even if a voter only gives ten dollars, which is a small amount of money, he will vote for you if he does. Both got the donation and bound the votes, no matter how you calculate it, it is a suitable business. ”

A small donor is a donor who has contributed less than $100. Under federal campaign law, small donors are not required to publish their names, and some candidates even set a minimum donation of $10 or less in order to bind their ballots.

Xiao Bushi laughed: "Zack, it's really you, of course we pay more attention to small donors, but the development of small donors is too difficult, the workload is too large, even if a campaign manager of the campaign team does not rest, can only visit 50-80 voters a day and receive about 20 small cash checks." The investment is too much compared to the expense. And small donors generally don't go to the bank to remit money for such a small amount of money, so it is too difficult. ”

Zhang Chen said leisurely: "Mr. Bushi, times have changed, if there is a way for your campaign manager to receive donations from small donors without leaving home, do you think it is tempting?"

Xiao Bu Shileng paused, and his eyes lit up: "Is there such a way?"

Zhang Chen smiled slightly: "Have you heard of PayPal?"

For well-known reasons, these chapters are not easy to write, some of them will be deleted because they are written, and some of them will be scolded by younger and hot-blooded readers.

(End of chapter)