Several dozen wealthy donors have taken advantage of this post-Citizens United world, writing seven-figure checks to political superPACs.

Yet it seems there's something wealthy donors weren't counting on when they wrote those checks — attracting attention, including from the political opposition and the media.

Any superPAC donor who gives more than $200 has to be reported to the Federal Election Commission, and that information is released to the public. That's how journalists found out about VanderSloot's donation and began looking into him.

VanderSloot told Fox News he was taken by surprise: "That really worried me at first, I'll tell you, and my first anticipation was that, 'Yeah, I've got a target strapped on my back.' And sure enough, then the attacks started coming, and I really thought I'd made a mistake."

 He says he's gotten negative press, received unsavory emails and lost customers.

To which Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute responds: "The fact that you get negative press coverage because you have decided to get involved in politics is, as Justice Scalia said, a part of the price of democracy and getting involved."

Ornstein says those donors had to have known their names would be public, and they chose to contribute. The fact that they don't want to talk about it now, he says, doesn't make much sense.