Something just dawned on me about corporate expenditures in politics--

[jberryhill]

4. Oh, it's much better than that

First, you set up a "political consulting company" that does mailers, media production, and campaign management consulting.

Then you set your PAC.

Then, both your campaign and your PAC hire your consulting company, so that your "expenses" as a candidate are income to your other entities.

Whether Sheldon Adelson's money is ending up in the pockets of Comcast, Time Warner and the corporate owners of strings of TV and radio stations is easy to characterize as going "back to the ownership class", but Adelson is looking for leverage to protect his other money laundering operations. The money isn't exactly going back to the same people, or at least not a significant quantity of it, because of all of the palms out along the way.