I'm a little gun-shy after my denied signature submissions to run as a Democratic candidate for mayor. I feel like the political road is filled with hidden land mines that an uninitiated candidate is very likely to set off.
So far I've passively raised about a small amount of money through a Paypal account I set up for the campaign. But some of the donations are from my friends and supporters in Canada. And all the PayPal accounts from which I received the donations are in the names of companies. Such is the life of a business owner.. most of the people I know run businesses.
I can't find if I'm able to accept donations from another country. I'm pretty certain I can't accept donations from a "foreign national." Google tells me that's a person living in this country but is a citizen of another country.
I know I can't accept donations from a corporation.
I may just return it all and maybe only accept checks from this point forward. We'll see. (If you donated, incidentally, that's one of more humbling things I've experienced in my life. I truly thank you.)
The technical details of it all are just sitting out there in a field waiting for me to walk over and blow up in my face.
I keep reading that doing this or that are illegal and are "fifth degree felonies."
In our prison-happy country I'm sure that's some number of years in prison.
And I know that an opponent would like nothing more than find a mistake in my process so they can paint me as incompetent at best or send me to jail at the worst.
Why would anyone want to go through this process? Why would anyone want to be a politician?
Here's my question: How the hell have we gotten to this point where we all ask those questions?
It's all turning me into this suspicious conspiracy theorist. Although I'm not thinking my suspicions are far off.
"Don't worry kids. Mom and dad will take care of this pesky political stuff. You just go and play."
How unlikely do you think it is that the Democrats and Republicans have painted us into this corner where The People have been pushed out of political process by making it too complicated and painful to participate in?
So I carry on.
Picture from here:
Urge the U.S. to Sign Treaty Banning Use of Landmines | ForceChange
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