I’d be willing to put more into political campaigns, if I had any idea how my money would help.

But I’ve cruised the campaign websites for the candidates I support, and I can’t find shit on how much they have raised, what their opponent has raised, and how my precious few dollars would make any difference.

They blanket my inbox with appeals. Tales of toxic opponents funded by mountains of dark money. It’s probably true. And maybe you can buy an election by just flooding the zone with ads. But if that’s all it took every business would buy every ad to sell whatever bullshit they can foist and we would all be millionaires.

In the time I’ve spent looking for election financials and trying to guess at campaign strategies, I can’t tell if TV ads do shit.

None of those ads are changing my mind. Do you know anyone who has changed their political opinion based on a 30-second ad? I don’t.

I don’t think they even know how many people are seeing these ads… Most of them are on the cable news channels, and yes I’m ashamed to admit that I still watch the corporate media news. It sucks. It’s slanted and biased based on their drive to capture one side or the other. It’s designed to generate rage to keep us all engaged and sell us life insurance and medicaid supplements. But I still watch.

The political ads on each channel are just an expensive session of singing to the choir.

How the fuck is that moving the political needle. How is any of that getting my candidate elected?

Treat me like an investor. I want to know how much money you have, how much you need, what you are going to do with it and what results are you hoping to get.

You can’t measure results from these crazy expensive TV Ad buys. The polls are getting more and more unreliable — people don’t answer their cell phones or are too eager to be polled to influence the results, or lie to the pollsters because they don’t want to publicly admit who they are voting for.

Are you using it for “turnout”. What the fuck does that actually mean? I’d rather spend my time driving people to the polls or making sure they can mail their ballots than dumping my dollars into your black hole.

Most of the fundraising emails I get refer to these FEC deadlines — we need X dollars by this deadline. Why?

Who cares if the biased media reports you are falling behind in fundraising. Democracy is supposed to be about winning votes, not filling your campaign coffers.

It may be common sense that political campaigns need money and whoever has the most money wins, but I can’t find evidence that outspending your opponent guarantees success. The Yankees lose all the time. The Lakers couldn’t buy a championship.

Even if money bought every election — how is my $50 going to compete with the US Chamber of Commerce or the Koch Brothers or what George Soros can afford?

Show me you are being smart with your money and maybe I’ll break out my credit card. Until then, I’m not throwing my grains of sand into your ocean of dark donors just so I can be forgotten the second the election is over and you can curtsey to your corporate overlords.

Show me what you are going to do and how you are going to do it, then maybe I’ll kick into your campaign. Until then, get out of my spam folder and stop begging for money like you are homeless in San Diego.