Five years ago this week, the U.S. Supreme Court built a pipeline for the Biggest Boys to pour their cash directly into campaigns. Now these guys are standing at their spigots, having their rings (or other parts) kissed by would-be presidents eager to fill their campaign tanks at a single stop.
For the candidates, it’s less messy and time-consuming. Why bother with thousands of donors or hundreds of bundlers? It is easier to sell yourself wholesale, and in bulk. And it is so much more efficient for the ridiculously rich to purchase an entire candidate, rather than just one or two of his or her issue positions.
Not that a brazenly beneficent billionaire alone can make you president. In 2012, the Biggest Money could only keep you on life support long after your candidacy was dead (read: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum). These were the “zombie” candidates, and they were annoying.
Still, a sugar daddy or two can turn the improbable or the obscure into the impossible-to-ignore, especially early on (read: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum). In a long and crowded Republican race (estimated MSRP for a nicely equipped campaign: $500 million), a billionaire has become indispensable. More than one is nice, if you can manage it.
On the Democratic side, the calculus is the reverse. Hillary Clinton’s aim (and that of her wealthy buddies) is to make sure that no would-be primary challenger can latch onto a billionaire of his or her own. Hillary wants -- and needs -- them ALL for herself. That could ultimately present another novel problem: keeping peace among the big-ego control freaks of big money.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the Hamlet of the Hub, doesn’t seem to want a billionaire, which is lucky for Hillary, until someone such as Warren proves that it is not: That is, until this whole mess of money madness is hosed off the streets by a new era of reform.
But, hey, this is America, where talk is cheap but TV time is expensive. With guidance from Paul Blumenthal, HuffPost's unparalleled expert on campaign finance, we offer this Dirty Dozen list of some of the most powerful (i.e. loaded and connected and, in most cases, still available) Bigs:
Donor Photos: Getty, Associated Press
CORRECTIONS: We originally misidentified Tom Steyer as a Republican; he is a Democrat. The chart has also been updated to indicate that Joe Ricketts' family owns the Chicago Cubs; his children are those principally involved with the team.