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kpete

(71,900 posts)
Thu Oct 22, 2015, 08:34 AM Oct 2015

Cruz Uses Campaign Money To Buy His Own Book Just To Resell At Huge Markup To Gullible Supporters

You may remember Cruz’s book, “A Time For Truth,” causing a bit of controversy when it debuted because the New York Times repeatedly left it off its bestseller list. It now appears they had reason to be suspicious of the book’s strong “sales.” According to a recent FEC filing by Cruz’s campaign, he dropped $122,000 of his millionaire-backed war chest to buy hundreds of copies of his own book. Even by generous estimates, this means Cruz’s campaign purchased around 8,000 copies of his own book using donated money.

But here’s where the rampant money-grabbing comes into play:

As the New Republic reports, Cruz – or a hapless campaign volunteer – then “signs” the books and sells those copies for a rather slight upcharge of 303% of its retail value on his campaign website.

Any piece of memorabilia signed by a celebrity is subject to price gouging. But in the case of the books sold by Cruz’s campaign, the donors are the ones paying for the goods, which are then resold to donors at high markups.

This highlights a growing trend of political candidates publishing books, then using those books or their publishers to essentially funds campaign activities—without actually calling it as such. Publishing books allows them to meet thousands of supporters and push their agendas, while holding onto the precious cash that acts as their campaign lifeblood.


And it’s actually much worse than the admittedly awful way it already looks. While campaigns argue that this sort of one hand feeds the other profiteering is meant to benefit the campaign, it’s also making Ted Cruz a fortune. When he inevitably bows out of the race, he’ll be left with hundreds of thousands of dollars in his bank account from book sales he made during the election, and his supporters will be left with an unread Ted Cruz book collecting dust on a shelf.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/10/21/cruz-uses-campaign-money-to-buy-his-own-book-just-to-resell-at-huge-markup-to-gullible-supporters/
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Cruz Uses Campaign Money To Buy His Own Book Just To Resell At Huge Markup To Gullible Supporters (Original Post) kpete Oct 2015 OP
It's a common tactic in their run-for-president-scam strategy. Scuba Oct 2015 #1
money laundering, it's not just for breakfast anymore. nt Javaman Oct 2015 #2
I suspect the motive has more to do with moving it up to a best seller list. nt Nitram Oct 2015 #3
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