ELI5: How do US political campaign contributions work? Do they get to keep the money?

I live and work in DC, am a Hill alumnus and executive branch alumnus, and make my money telling people how Washington works. I have a JD and have worked extensively on federal ethics law. You absolutely do not have to teach me about Duncan Hunter.

What your comments don't seem to take into account is that there are absolutely times when someone can pay their spouse to work on their campaign and use contributions to buy tequila (hell I could probably think of a way to spend campaign money on shorts if I needed to). There are shades of gray in EVERYTHING related to campaign expenditures, and you don't do any favors to someone trying to understand by making grandiose sweeping statements that you have to amend later by insisting that one Congressman was very very bad.

/r/explainlikeimfive Thread Parent