Numbers Don’t Lie
All this information is from OpenSecrets.org
I predict Barack Obama will win the primaries. Why? He raised more money than Clinton, and in America, that’s what matters the most. Okay, I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek here, but still: Obama raised $138 million compared to $135 million for Clinton. McCain, who is in a much colder race, raised $54 million.
Where did they get their money from? This is an important question to ask. In the 2000 election, Bush received more donations from the oil industry than the last three presidents combined. And look what happened during his terms–gas prices tripled and we are in a war over oil. That is not a coincidence.
So I took a look at where our new candidates are getting their money from. I’m not that great with numbers, but what I learned was kind of interesting, so I’ll share. Obama got most of his money–74%–from Ideological/Single Issue, meaning individual donations, charities, etc. Another 26% is from Business, meaning corporate donations.
Clinton, on the other hand, received the majority of her donations–56%–from Business. About one-third of her money comes from Ideological/Single Issue.
Then I broke their contributions down by industry. Although I didn’t go through every industry, I discovered that Clinton led Obama in donations from every industry I looked at except for Computers/Internet and Education. Here are some samples of what I saw (keep in mind that while I’m including McCain in here, the comparisons are really apples to oranges because he ran on less money):
Industry: Tobacco
Clinton received $45,800
McCain received $17,000
Obama received $16,187Industry: Oil/Gas
McCain received $283,285
Clinton received $276,150
Obama received $157,390
(This pales compared to Giuliani’s $649,608 from the Oil/Gas industry, btw)Industry: Insurance
Clinton received $781,361
Obama received $594,760
McCain received $381,482Industry: Real Estate (A big issue right now, obviously)
Clinton received $5,366,432
Obama received $3,038,325
McCain received $2,193,808Industry: Commercial Banks
Clinton received $1,211,924
Obama received $1,175,885
McCain received $730,525Industry: Casinos/Gambling
McCain received $102,200
Clinton received $91,125
Obama received $31,300Lobbyists:
Clinton received $783,290
McCain received $453,365
Obama received $99,240
(Note that Clinton is the clear leader here–she has almost twice the donations of the second person on the list, McCain. Compare that to Obama’s modest $100,000.)
What does this say? It says, at the very least, that Clinton is friendlier with most industries than Obama is. Considering that most corruption in American government takes place in the dealings between businesses and politicians, these numbers further my distrust of Clinton considerably. They are, after all, on top of her voting us into Iraq and voting for the Patriot Act twice.

