Generally running for office is not a great way to make money. Running for office can end up costing you lots of money, if you are not successful. If you are successful, the payoffs are quite decent. No member of Congress is on food stamps. Serve a few terms and when you leave you can get a great job as a lobbyist. But still, do you really want to associate with elected officials? So many of them are unsavory characters. Hanging with that crowd is likely to turn you into a moral degenerate as well, if you aren’t careful.

Also, running for office is hard work and there is no guarantee of success. But if you want to give it a try, first start out small. Look and see what type of community you live in. Do Democrats tend to win elections in your town or do Republicans have more success? If you want to make money in politics you cannot have strongly held principles. Join whatever party is more popular. Spout their nonsense, even if you know it is nonsense. Start out small. Help on as many campaigns as you can. Getting some fresh air and exercise by walking around your neighborhood handing out campaign literature can be lots of fun. Run for your local party central committee. Those jobs don’t typically pay, but they can get your foot in the door. From there, run for a small local or state office. It might only be part-time and pay little, but that’s better than nothing. After that you can move on to other and bigger campaigns.

There are some circumstances where running for office can be profitable, even if you lose. For example, if you are an attorney with a small practice, running for local judge or prosecutor is a great way to get some name recognition in your community. Even if you don’t win and even if you aren’t a particularly talented attorney, lots of people who don’t know any better will be more inclined to hire you because they will assume that because you ran you must know something and are connected simply because you ran. If you are an accountant and run for comptroller or a similar position, people will also make those same assumptions. Some people who run for office also attempt to take a salary (where allowed by law) from the money donated, claiming that they are campaigning full time and cannot work at their normal jobs. While this practice may be frowned upon, people have done it in the past. So even if they lose, they still win.

However, I do not advise that you do these things. If you decided to run for office it should be because you believe in what you are saying, and don’t care if you win or lose. If you are a principled person, you will lose money and the election.

Besides politics, you could also take part in other criminal activities to make money. Your conscience should tell you that most criminal activities are immoral. Your common sense should tell you that this likely to backfire. But if you insist, you know it is not very hard to run an internet marketing scheme. Just buy a used laptop with cash, use a free and public wifi service, and setup a free email account on some server, using a fake name. Buy email lists with millions of addresses and spam away.

Growing marijuana or selling other drugs may be an idea that you have thought about. I do not see this activities as per se immoral, but I also advise against them, unless you are acting in conformity with all laws, which you likely won’t be unless you are in Colorado or some other place that has ended marijuana prohibition. I often see people in court who try these various schemes and it generally doesn’t work out well for them. Even if you succeed for a while, you always have to watch your back. Other sellers and the government will always be after you. Life is too short as it is. Don’t make it shorter or end up in prison.

Generally speaking, you should avoid doing anything that reasonably strikes you as immoral and/or illegal. You should try to think of ways to make money in a way that offers other people some good or service that is useful, pleasurable, or necessary. If you do that, and stay honest, you will wealthier, healthier, and happier.