Don't you hate it when people buy elections? I always recommend the
Open Secrets website, which pays attention to who is giving what, and to whom. And as a reminder, the top donors don't generally give to the party you hear about:
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| A bridge too Fahr |
This list includes total contributions since the 2002 election cycle. The one that got my attention is
Fahr LLC. Have you ever heard anything about them on the news? Turns out Fahr LLC is (a) an executive search firm and (b) controlled by Tom Steyer, a heavy hitter for Democrats.
If Steyer and his organizations want to give money to Democrats, that's their business. It is worth noting that 6 of the top 10 are labor unions, and that two of the top 6 are teachers' unions. When you see someone railing against the Koch Brothers (who come in on this list at #49, although they have been giving more lately), remember who gives the most.
3 comments:
Come on, Mark. You know you're ignoring a HUGE chunk of money in the political ecosystem, here. Spend some time looking at Open Secrets' rankings of the kinds of money PACs have raised in *just this cycle*. 16 of the top 20 are conservative (and 15 of those support specific GOP candidates.) Jeb's alone is about at half of the SEIU's total contributions over the last decade and a half.
If you look at the disclosed donors to PACS and other outside spending groups (also available on Open Secrets), the individual donors at the top tilt overwhelmingly right. The institutional donors at the top are split roughly down the middle.
And of course, 501c(4)s don't have to disclose their donors at all.
I'm not ignoring it; the point of the post is to show the historical levels of spending. I acknowledge the Kochs are spending more now than they did in the past.
You do know why the Republican spending is up, right? There are still a dozen candidates in the race and they are all still shaking the money tree. And the money that Jeb Bush holds won't necessarily benefit the eventual Republican nominee — I don't suspect Jeb is going to be that guy. And the 501c(4) money is on both sides.
All I'm saying — moneyed interests aren't monolithic, despite the reportage that suggests the Koch Brothers are in control of the world. For every Koch and Adelson, there's a Soros and a Steyer. And historically, more money has been on the left than the right. I know you know that, too.
When someone tells me I should look at a small portion of the dataset instead of the whole dataset, it's a great hint he's doing some cherry picking. And when I look at the whole dataset, voila--that's exactly what I find!
And really, should we be surprised that corporations and wealthy individuals are favoring Republicans when a central plank of a lot of Democratic platforms is to overturn the Citizens United decision and leave their companies with less recourse to influence the political process? It's really about as surprising as finding that a longtime smoker has lung troubles, really.
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