For many candidates running for office, at least at the national level, a significant portion of their campaign contributions come from political action committees, or PACs. These are typically set up by some interest group, organization, or business with the intent of sending monetary aid to candidates that align with their ideological interests.
At least, that's what allegedly happens.
In reality, most PACs operate on the basic premise of reciprocity. If they help a young Senator get elected, they expect some cutback in return. It's common to link this phenomenon purely with businesses and the corporate sector, but that only encompasses part of the story. In reality, all PACs (even those of such high-minded organizations as state chapters of Right to Life) excpect something in return for their contribution.
Whenever the quarterly FEC reports are released, a veritable army of analysts begins to pore over it, looking for trends, specifics, anything that might help show where an election is going, and why. A couple of weeks ago, the Q3 report came out. One of these trends, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise, is the dramatic shift of contributions from Democratic Senate candidates to Republicans.
It's common to associate corporate interests with the Republican party, but in reality, all they want is influence. Whether that comes with the Democrats or the Republicans is largely irrelevant. A quote from the article illustrates this well:
“Wall Street expects return on investment,” said Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, a brokerage firm. “It makes no sense to contribute to a losing campaign.”
In other words, what reciprocity are you going to get if the man you're funelling money to didn't win? This shift illustrates the continually rising tide of the Republican party in their bid to retake the Senate in 2014, and dramatically so.
The real question isn't if the Republicans will suceed. That's all but certain at this point. The real question is what they'll do with it.
