Ramtin Arablui and Randa Abdelfattah

This is a term you may have heard, called dark money.

Super PACs, by law, actually have to disclose their donors.

But if a billionaire chooses to donate to a group, and that group chooses to donate to a super PAC... I call this financial pinball.

The billionaire's name isn't the one that gets disclosed.

It's really, I think, the super PAC era where the wealthy really dive into national politics in this really full-throated way.

And I think part of what happens is the Citizens United decision and some of these changes, the evolution of the system, kind of give a brighter and brighter green light to the ultra wealthy to do this.

And that kind of changes the culture and the wealthier people spend more and more without feeling bad about it or anxious about it.

But I also think what's important in all of these changes and certainly culminating in the super PAC era is that the ultra wealthy, you don't necessarily want to run your own

That's not what you're good at, and you don't have the infrastructure to do that.

So what's really helpful is to have a political professional who's aligned with your views, who comes to you and says, hey, we'll do all the work, just give us the money.

And what the Super PAC allowed those professionals to do is have this uncapped channel to a few wealthy people who could fund a very sophisticated, very effective ad campaign.

And here's where things get a little wild.

As we've established, super PACs can't coordinate directly with candidates or specific campaigns.

There's too much potential for corruption.

But the law says nothing about using information that's floating out there, free for anyone to use.

So you can frame...

public coordination as how campaigns whisper through a megaphone by winking in plain sight.

Here are just a few ways super PACs can unofficially and legally get on the same page as the candidates they support.

First up, red boxing.

This is when candidates put messages on their website.