they<u+2019>re approximately 20 percent accurate. while this list would have held water prior to the supreme court<u+2019>s 2010 decision in citizens united v. fec, the hill places<u+00a0>undue value on social media.









<u+201c>twitter, snapchat and other social media tools are also playing a role in the race,<u+201d> the story argues for zuckerberg<u+2019>s influence, <u+201c>but they do not have the reach of facebook.<u+201d>









if <u+201c>likes, posts, comments and shares<u+201d> were a valid metric, bernie sanders would be king of the world right now.









citizens united invalidated any sort of grassroots political buzz<u+00a0>(e.g. sanders). even the master of media manipulation, donald trump, won<u+2019>t be able to translate his twitter-momentum into a general election win against establishment collage hillary clinton, unless he can unite the gop behind him.









the ability of nonprofits to accept unlimited individual donations to push a political agenda is far more important than whether or not the <u+201c>money-losing<u+201d> huffington post covers trump under its <u+201c>entertainment<u+201d> or <u+201c>politics<u+201d> section.









so-called dark money, in conjunction with a wide-reaching<u+00a0><u+201c>mouthpiece,<u+201d> paves the road to the oval office <u+2014> and even a brilliant john oliver expose can<u+2019>t change that.









special interest groups <u+2014> like the nra <u+2014> can scrounge up a good chunk of<u+00a0>change for the candidate most likely to maintain the status quo, but super pacs are the best source of dark money.









pacs<u+00a0>have the added benefit of keeping their donors anonymous, which is a nice feature for people who don<u+2019>t want their tennis partners to know they bet on the wrong horse or, worse yet, backed trump.









as the face of the koch brothers <u+2014> the infamous proprietors of libertarian-leaning freedom partners action fund <u+2014> charles koch deals with the client-facing aspects of koch pr.









in an interview with<u+00a0>abc<u+00a0>on sunday, charles koch explained his and his brother david<u+2019>s decision to withhold<u+00a0>their much-coveted endorsement of the remaining candidates. in so doing, charles condemned what he called a <u+201c>two-tiered system<u+201d> (i.e.<u+00a0>a regressive tax) and suggested hillary clinton might make a better president than cruz or trump.









koch<u+2019>s hillary support isn<u+2019>t necessarily as out-of-left-field as it may seem, considering the brothers<u+2019> recent embrace of criminal justice reform.









last spring, politico magazine reported that <u+201c>koch had decided to help pull together a new coalition of left-right advocacy groups in washington, including the hillary clinton-aligned center for american progress<u+201d> with an aim towards eradicating prison overcrowding.









among the major donors to the center for american progress is billionaire george soros,<u+00a0>who<u+2019>s given $7 million to the hillary clinton-endorsing priorities usa action super pac during the 2016 cycle.









soros was the top individual donor during the 2008 cycle as well, giving $5 million to four 527 organizations. in 2012, however, he gave just $1 million to obama reelection pac, priorities usa. soros has invested a relatively significant amount of personal money into this cycle, and is likely to up the ante when the general election rolls around. there<u+2019>s a limit<u+00a0>to how far<u+00a0>pac money can keep a candidate afloat (e.g. jeb! bush and li<u+2019>l marco rubio). for lack of a less conspiratorial word, every special interest needs a mouthpiece. not a known political financier, amazon<u+2019>s jeff bezos took a less direct route to political influence in purchasing the washington post in 2013. and though wapo is a humongous organization, editorial leanings in the media tend to have a top-down effect. despite his nearly $55 billion net worth, bezos has donated relatively small amounts to democrats ($28,000) and republicans ($4,000). some, however, claim he<u+2019>s similar to other<u+00a0>tech entrepreneurs who support<u+00a0>a libertarian, small-government platform. the post hasn<u+2019>t formally endorsed clinton, but its editorial board unmistakably<u+00a0>condemned her primary opponent, bernie sanders, in a january article titled <u+201c>bernie sanders<u+2019>s fiction-filled campaign.<u+201d> in the months since the editorial board<u+2019>s unendorsement, the post has been<u+00a0>accused of<u+00a0>repeatedly<u+00a0>parroting clinton<u+2019>s agenda. as the namesake<u+00a0>of prominent news aggregation site, drudge report, matt drudge wields his right-wing influence through the careful curation of what appears on the site<u+2019>s homepage. in their book, <u+201c>the way to win,<u+201d> mark halperin and john f. harris call drudge <u+201c>the single most influential purveyor of information about american politics<u+201d> for his role in john kerry<u+2019>s loss in 2004. drudge report reader polls, conducted after each televised debate this primary cycle, consistently declared trump the winner. and a when asked who they<u+2019>re supporting for the presidency, participating drudge readers voted overwhelmingly<u+00a0>in favor of trump (60% to second place ted cruz<u+2019>s 19%). and though these polls are decidedly unscientific, they did capture the intensity of trump<u+2019>s support <u+2014> the real story of the gop campaign <u+2014> and people are starting to give drudge more and more credit as the trump train chugs towards cleveland. in a radio interview earlier this month, cruz complained that drudge report <u+201c>has basically become the attack site for the donald trump campaign.<u+201d> <u+201c>by all appearances, roger stone now decides what<u+2019>s on drudge, and most days they have a six-month-old article that is some attack on me,<u+201d> cruz added. <u+201c>whatever the trump campaign is pushing that day will be the banner headline on drudge.<u+201d>
drudge, koch, soros, bezos: these 4 non-politicians will determine the next president
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