[TheRealThing]

They are different, I threw that in as more of a side note because your post just brought that to mind, about business loans. It's one thing what people see on the news about that. But if they saw first hand how deep business owners were digging into their pocketbooks, they would cringe.

As for Donald Trump, when he mentioned he would be self-financing his campaign I think everybody took it that his campaign expenses would be coming out of his pocket. I scratched my head as to why he was taking donations on his web page, but I figured maybe somewhere along the line he meant that he was just going to take donations from individuals and not from corporate lobbyists.

Let's put it this way. Say you're a small business owner, a rare one that is doing well in these difficult economic times. Let's say you're out shopping one day and see an excellent deal on a computer that you could use for your company. You decide to go ahead and buy it because it's the latest technology and has a bunch of neat perks that your accountant would be able to put to use in their day-to-day duties. You go ahead and purchase the $1,000 computer with your own money.

A month later, you get around to paying yourself back with the company money. Thus, was it really you that bought that computer, or was it the company?

That's the scenario we are dealing with concerning Donald Trump, on a larger scale. Trump took out a loan to pay his campaign finances, but he's not paying that back with his own money. He's will pay the money back with what he receives in donations from lobbyists in the general election cycle. It's a great way to make it look like he is paying for his primary campaign out of his own pocketbook when in reality, he is just taking the donations at a later time.

Let's say for the sake of conversation that I stipulate to your analysis as accurate. His platform and his mandate, whatever that might be, was already established before any meaningful donations were made. Donors must therefore get on board, or keep their money as the die is cast. That was his intent, to be a candidate who won the nomination away from the persuasive deep pocketed establishment string pullers in DC.. Any donations made now arguably missed the opportunity to shape this nominee's agenda. I don't see that as dishonest.