[Mustang19]

I have a question...if we don't want to lose lives in conflict, and we typically don't like to get involved, and we don't have a lot of money, and it's probably that a lot of money is lost to inter-departmental bureaucracy? Why do we have 4 little mini militaries instead of one that we can fund more easily?

The Air Force actually fought for independence from the Army after WWII. The bureaucratic infighting gets even worse when you have multiple organizations over one stovepipe each fighting for "their" tribe.

[Mustang19]

With corporate donations you also have to remember that public companies don't really plan for the long-term and will fund candidates who will do the best job of boosting shareholder value for shareholders who may only be holding the stock for a year.

[General Battuta]

With corporate donations you also have to remember that public companies don't really plan for the long-term and will fund candidates who will do the best job of boosting shareholder value for shareholders who may only be holding the stock for a year.

Precisely! Myopic thinking! (sort of, I guess you could argue that's rational if the value of those stockholders is high enough)

[Mustang19]

The problem is that

1) You're thinking of the wealthy as a united group, when in practice it's just a bunch of special interests acting under a prisoner's dilemma.

and

2) You don't donate to a candidate because you want them to win, you donate because there's something they can give you right now in exchange for the donation.