I don’t know what the culture is where you are, but I don’t give people money for friendly gifts. If anything, that just implies our relationship is transactional and shallow, rather than a community who care about each other more than money.
What I do is return the favor by giving them free things later, just like they did. Like buying them a drink at a pub.
And don’t forget ‘rich’, or more importantly, supported by the rich. A national-scale campaign requires resources that a typical organization can’t gather, and to win without such a campaign is miraculous in most systems.
Nah, like you said it applies to most democracies, even if America is an extreme example of these universal trends.