Yeah, for example, the Republican National Committee spent over $300K on Donald Trump Jr.'s book, which it then turned around and gave to donors, and $100K more on one of his other books. It spent over $400K on Dan Crenshaw's book and almost $100K on Tom Cotton's book. When Herman Cain was running for President, his campaign committee bought up pallets of his book that happened to be on sale at the same time as his political candidacy. The RNC also spent over $100K on a Sean Hannity book. The DNC spent nearly $100K on Chelsea Clinton's book.

The FEC is apparently on board with all of this, as long as the candidate isn't... using the books their campaigns purchase for their personal use. I guess the next time Ted Cruz gets shamed into staying home during an ice storm, he'll be disappointed to know that he can't burn his own books for warmth.

There's probably a book in this history of books as payoff, from Grant's memoirs on up.

There is some value to these ridiculous autobiographies (not so much for the I-hate-the-President-books). In 100 years, some future historian can draw from 'The Art of the Deal', 'Dreams From My Father', and probably some biography of Millard Fillmore to reach a conclusion. In the long run, they are all non-entities.

So the ex-mayor of Baltimore should have had the Maryland Democratic Party buy her children’s books instead?

Either that or her own campaign committee. If she got her campaign to buy the books and give them away to campaign contributors, it's totally fine as far as the FEC is concerned.