SLICK VALLEY, TEXAS — Hillary Clinton amassed a whopping $29 million in campaign contributions this past quarter, while her biggest rival for the Democratic nod, Bernie Sanders, brought in just slightly less at $26 million. The top Republican fundraiser was Dr. Ben Carson who brought in $20 million in donations while Jeb! countered with around $13 million himself.
With the exception of Sanders, who has rejected large sum donations from corporations and has instead amassed his war chest by way of over a million smaller, personal donations, the candidates are depending on money from people like Executive Chair of Freedom Oil, Jasper P. Egoïste — chief executive of Freedom Oil since 1992. He says that in 2012 his SuperPAC spent $220 million supporting Mitt Romney for president as well as dozens of other GOP candidates throughout Texas, where Freedom Oil is headquartered, and this election his PAC is looking to at least double their contributions.
“We cannot fathom paying a penny more in taxes,” Egoïste told reporters at a recent luncheon held at a hotel in down down Slick Valley, Texas, “and we will spare no expense in greasing the right political palms to ensure that’s a reality.” Mr. Egoïste, who calls himself a “rock-ribbed conservative,” also told reporters that he and other conservative members of the nation’s wealthiest class are “petrified at the thought of being asked to give another penny or two on each dollar” they earn, and as a result they will “unleash torrents of money” on the political system in an effort to “secure the government that will be the most beneficial for us, and by us I mean the One Percent, of course.”
In 2012, between the presidential and congressional elections, the total tab for all the pomp, circumstance, and attack ads was right around $7 billion. Egoïste, however, cautions people against worrying about the implications of a group of billionaire’s essentially vying for a chance to buy the election outcome they want.
“Just because I give money to Candidate X, and I do so knowing I’m going to get some kind of access to our top levels of government I wouldn’t otherwise get, does that mean you can’t trust me,” Mr. Egoïste asked rhetorically. He continued, “You have to understand that as a super-wealthy job creator, I have be coddled, and even though the amount of money I’m donating probably vastly exceeds the amount of money in additional taxes I’m fighting against having to pay, I’m the good guy in this scenario.” He said that what “made this country great were all the times that people came together,” helped one another out, and “then someone took advantage of the other one’s kindness.”
Mr. Egoïste said he’s sympathetic to the “optics of a bunch of rich people ignoring the plight of the plebes to buy politicians instead,” but that if people are upset about they can “start their own SuperPACs by scraping together a few thousand of their kids’ college savings accounts” if they want. Egoïste says that he is not against charity, he just only wants to do it when he feels like it and not “as some way to pay back the system [he] so richly benefited from.” The oil magnate said that despite there being no evidence that private and religious-based charities would be able to handle the workload it would take to care for the poorest Americans should he get his way that isn’t any of his “concern.”
“This is America damnit,” Egoïste said, “and I will fight tooth and nail, spare no expense to make sure that my definition of liberty — the liberty to not care for your fellow Americans — is the vision of liberty we all live under.”
