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Follow the Money
I've been kind of skeptical, personally, about all the optimism floating around town about the Democrats' chances of taking the House this fall. But if K Street's decided they need to start hedging their bets, that's definitely a data point in favor of thinking it might happen since it strikes me as worth putting some credence in predictions being made by people who are putting their money where their mouths are.
Of course the flipside of all of this is that it would really be nice to see Democrats wanting to take power in order to clean up the corrupt racket that the legislative process has become rather than aiming at getting a bigger piece of the action.
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Amen. The perception problem the Dems have is that they are simply waiting for their turn at the trough. And thanks to articles like this and Democratic leaders like Joe Biden (D-MBNA), I'm not so sure that that isn't he case.
I believe it would do the Dems good to publicly swear off of corporate donations. Last I heard the corporate donations were running close to 90% R to 10% D (but I could be WAAAAAY off base here). Any idea on how to get some accurate numbers on this?
August 17, 2006 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
i'd say, continue to be skeptical, particularly about the senate but also about the house.
August 17, 2006 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any idea on how to get some accurate numbers on this?
Try this.
August 17, 2006 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. That's one for the bookmarks. Thank you!
August 18, 2006 5:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you look at the "industry" giving the second most to candidates, it is "retired". That's my "industry". And, this makes me wonder if this type of discussion has any value, because everyone is either employed in some industry, retired, or out of work for some reason. So, when any of us donate money, we have to fill in a form that requires an employer be listed, and that is the source of this type of data.
I used to work in the air transport industry, but my donations at that time were totally independent of my industry. So independent I never did know if I was following the "corporate line" or opposing it. It is illegal for a corporation to direct the contributions of its employees, and especially illegal for them to provide the money specifically to be donated by the employee. Are we thinking that this is what is going on? Corporations directing their employees donations?
We need a different way to measure corporate donations. The way we are doing it now hides the donations that really are signficant - the PAC donations where a corporation or industry runs the PAC, and the Lobby donations which are just poorly disguised bribes.
Hoppy in Sacramento
August 19, 2006 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink