$17 million raised to get a $400k per year job??

I know that good ol' Rick Perry is certainly not the first nor will he be the last person to run for President and raise exorbitant amounts of money.  In a recent news bukkake, several (almost all) news outlets have reported that thus far Rick Perry has raised $17 million for his campaign for Presidency with $15 million of that in cash since August.  In two months, a man has raised $17 million.  Can you really wrap your mind around that?  Our current president amassed a reported $750 million dating back to his initial run at the presidency starting in 2007!!!  Good God, who the hell are these people giving these crazy politicians this much juice?  I understand the concept that a candidate has to raise a certain amount of funds to campaign.  They have to cover travel expenses, food, a large staff of people to tell them what to say, pay-offs, hookers, booze, and other assorted necessities that come along a road trip plus they have to pay for all of those silly commercials and signs with their names on them.  The goal of the presidency is really no longer about change and people's rights and all the other stuff that people want to believe.  No, it’s about who can raise the most money and put down the guy with less.
I can use one of my little analogies to make this better understood.  Did you ever go to school with some rich kid who was the same as you in many ways but was a dick and got ahead because of his parents money?  Of course you did, I won't even allow an answer.  I bet the guy or gal was probably your friend in elementary school and maybe even a little in to middle school but once they hit high school full bore, you were no longer a friend but more of a liability or perhaps a fan.  This kid would impress all of the others with his newest crap that daddy bought him.  He would brag about his new 150 inch big screen, his new Segatendo X-station Box gaming system, and his 450 horse-power sports car and everyone would look at him and think "Aww, that guy knows what it’s about, I'm hanging with him."  Well, that’s how we make presidents (one of the ways at least).  These candidates raise huge amounts of cash from these "private" donors and go out and "press the flesh" with some handshaking seminars and shout out about how right they are for the country.  It’s the same thing, they are really bragging based on the deeds of others.  Imagine that you were given $10,000 for simply smiling, shaking a hand, and agreeing with everything the person says that writes the check.  Tell me that you wouldn't do that all day long!! 
And that's kind of what these guys do or as I like to say, "It's EXACTLY what they do."  Find a special interest or cause that has backers with large pocket books, agree with them, tell them that you will help them out, and watch the money roll in.  Its basic politics. 
The thing that looks so silly in all of this is that all of this money that they are raising is in effort to get a job that pays a mere fraction of what they are earning.  The salary that Perry can expect (if he got elected) would only be 2% of what he made the past two months in the span of a year.  To me this always begs a couple of different questions or thoughts (because no one ever gives me answers to my questions):  What kind of megalomaniacal narcissist runs for a President?  How pissed are all of these private donors when their candidate losses?  And, how often do you think the candidate secretly thinks to himself about taking all of that campaign money and hopping the next flight to Switzerland?  I can answer the last one in short...Every single day!!
First, I think that it has to take a narcissistic freak to run for any huge position of power.  Why?  Because to them this might not even be about the money to start off with, of course it doesn't hurt either, but it’s more about the power.  Here we have people spending all of this time and money into a job that they know will give them insane amounts of power and notoriety.  Everyone knows that the president's past and present get scrutinized on both a micro and macro level, every move they make will be analyzed by every news outlet, every word out their mouth will be turned and twisted to fit the agenda of others, they have no privacy, the eye of the nation is always upon them.  It takes a pretty twisted freak to want to take on all of that.  And no, it’s not because they feel some obligation to serve the citizens, it’s because they are attention whores who love themselves more than any other man, woman, or child could ever love them.  They spend not only their own money, but that of all of these donors in the name of getting some powerful job.  This is the only job in America that this is totally acceptable to do.  You don't see Billy working at Burger King, collecting donations, and running a $4 million campaign to become the manager who only makes $40,000 a year, do you?  Everyone would look at Billy like some sort of demented creature with severe mental problems, but a guy raises $750 million over 4 or 5 years to make $400,000 a year and no one bats an eyelash.  I don't know maybe I'm just crazy and just overanalyze stuff but it seems to be narcissism in its purist form.

As for the poor, private donors who are basically betting on their candidate to get in?  I don't feel sorry for them when their guy loses.  I feel uncomfortable for them, but not sorry.  It’s just like gambling, they put some heavy cash out there hoping to get the results they want and sometimes they win and sometimes they lose.  I just cringe at hearing about candidates raising these vast fortunes from donors and then losing.  It’s kind of like this Perry thing, within something like 48 hours of the news coming out about him raking in $17 million, the news started reporting how he plummeted in the polls due to him being a racist who likes to hunt on a property named Niggerhead.  Could you imagine being one of those donors who gave $50,000 and heard that your candidate hunts on Niggerhead?!?!?  I am sure when news like this breaks out there is simultaneous non-stop vomiting occurring all across America from donors.  This is one of the primary reasons I would never donate any more than $1 to any campaign or candidate and I probably wouldn't even donate that much.  I don't want to put my money into a person because all people are flawed and they all have some sort of skeletons lurking in their closet.  Clinton liked to screw and smoke pot, Bush Jr loved cocaine and booze, Obama has the middle name Hussein and Trump doesn't think he was born here.  See they all have these flaws or perceived flaws that at any point during their campaign for presidency could have derailed them.  Over the course of history we see it all the time from the people who lost, they almost always had some sort of minor skeleton hanging out in their closet.  I can't feel sorry for these people in losing their money on a bad candidate but it does make me feel uncomfortable that people are that naive to put their faith, trust, and money on a human being who has some weird intentions of being in control of everything.

Having said that, I will now announce my intention to run for the Presidency of the United States under the great Hunter S. Thompson's "Freak Power" Party, please give me all of your money and trust.