North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum is running for president. He’s also very wealthy.
So one of the rules established by the folks who are running the first debate is that each candidate must have 40,000 new donors in order to qualify for the stage. These contributions can be as little as one dollar.
Given that very few people know who Burgum is (Doug who?), he’s been struggling to get people to donate to his campaign, so he decided to use his vast bank account to buy donors for $19 each. Yup, all you have to do is send him a buck and then he will send back a $20 gift card to the first 50,000 people who respond.
That debate spot will cost him close to a million dollars, but that’s only .1% of his wealth. He’ll likely make that all back in interest within a day or two.
Burgum insists that this is nothing more than altruism, which is laughable. It just goes to show that if you’re rich and powerful enough, you can have anything you want, including a nice, shiny debate podium and a chance to vilify your opponents on national TV.
Campaign finance lawyers are looking into the legality of his scheme.
Math error!
39,000,000,000,000 population microbiome, not 39,000,000!
Have you and each of your family members (and pets) considered this "opportunity" so each of you can receive a (at least) $20 plastic card?
I've been pondering maxxing out our HILOC (as the landlord and legal host of approximately 39 trillion microbial cells inhabiting my body) and register about 40,000 new "supporters" of the Burgum campaign so "we" can receive 40,000 Sugar Daddy Doug's $20 gift cards. Let's see... (20$ - 1$) X 40,000 supporters = $760,000! Ka-Ching!
"In any human body there are around 30 trillion human cells, but our microbiome is an estimated 39 trillion microbial cells including bacteria, viruses and fungi that live on and in us." https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/human-microbiome/
Maybe I (and my approximately 39,000,000 population microbiome) would…