Hollywood Popular Artists

Jun 4th 2012, 18:34

45 million 18-29 year olds will be eligible to vote in this year's presidential election, representing the largest potential voting bloc in the country. Learn more about the issues, register to vote and get involved with MTV's Power of 12. Today, we've got another "Jargon Buster" for you.

bundler, noun: someone who collects campaign contributions from various donors, allowing him/her to make a lump sum donation larger than the individual donor limit

Well this one just sounds all warm and cozy, doesn't it? Trust, however, that it doesn't have anything to do with bundling up in down comforters on Friday nights. It all comes back to money.

How do you think candidates pay for commercials and billboards and buttons and yard signs? Yuuuup: donations. You'll read about big donors -- stars and rich folks donating to campaigns. You'll end up getting calls for "anything you can give" as we move down to the election day wire. There are regulations in place, though, to make sure no one bazillionaire is funding any candidate's entire campaign, that no one entity is pulling the ad strings.

"Bundlers" are the way around this. Although no one person can give above the limit, one person can collect donations from lots of other people and make that contribution on everyone's behalf. So, say, I can give up to $2,500 to Future Prez X, but if y'all all send me checks totaling, oh, $100,000, I can pool them and give that $100,000 directly to FPX's campaign. Hey, FPX may even honor me at a party. How about that? Only catch is that bundlers, unlike myself, tend to be powerful people with rich friends in high places. Lump sums from various bundlers amount to tens of millions of dollars in contributions.

And that, my friends, is how they keep those billboards comin' ...

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