The Dish has spotlighted the extraordinary sway that a small number of individuals hold over campaign finance post-Citizens United. Shane Ferro crunches the numbers to see how to match them:
Well, let’s say roughly 200 Americans shelled out $10 million each (as casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson did last month to a pro-Romney super PAC)—that’s $2 billion pumped into the campaign system. And let’s say the average person making the median income (around $40,000 per year) can comfortably afford about a $100 contribution (that’s maybe a weekend’s worth of bar tabs?). How many $100 contributions would you need to equal the $2 billion of the .000063 percent? Twenty million. Okay, that sounds like a lot, but in reality is less than ten percent of the population. If even one in ten people donated a healthy but affordable sum, they would match the multi-million-dollar contributions of the wealthiest donors.
Jane Mayer's related AA thoughts here.
The Dish 