Saturday, October 11, 2008

Who is buying the White House?

Disturbing. Where are those funds from Obama coming from? McCain has full disclosure of his funding. Looks like Hillary may have been the best pick for Democrats.

Here is a little something someone sent to me about McCain's possible character:
McCain's gambling

See why I'm nuts this election season??

7 comments:

kc bob said...

I am considering voting for the Christian this year :)

karen said...

Isn't that all of them? :-)

Gary Means said...

To answer your question about who is buying the White House, here's some information. If you look beyond conservative mags you can find real data out there.

Obama campaign contribution disclosure:
Full Disclosure
$241,496,372
Incomplete Disclosure
$5,645,434
No Disclosure
$14,294,243

McCain campaign contribution disclosure:
Full Disclosure
$149,978,607
Incomplete Disclosure
$5,347,819
No Disclosure
$17,504,399

Obama campaign contribution sources:
Individual contributions
$426,902,991
PAC contributions
$450
Candidate self-financing
$0
Federal Funds
$0
Other
$27,152,882
Report Date 09/21/2008

John McCain campaign contribution sources
Individual contributions
$184,758,250
PAC contributions
$1,346,385
Candidate self-financing
$0
Federal Funds
$0
Other
$43,935,187
Report Date 09/21/2008

PAC MOney to Obama
Goldman Sachs
$739,521
University of California
$697,506
Harvard University
$501,489
Citigroup Inc
$492,548
Google Inc
$487,355

PAC money to McCain
Merrill Lynch
$349,170
Citigroup Inc
$287,801
Morgan Stanley
$249,377
Goldman Sachs
$220,045
JPMorgan Chase & Co
$206,392


Money to Obama from bundlers
Lawyers/Law Firms
$11,700,000
Securities & Investment
$8,900,000
TV/Movies/Music
$3,150,000
Computers/Internet
$2,150,000
Business Services
$2,100,000

Money to McCain from bundlers
Securities & Investment
$11,850,000
Real Estate
$9,500,000
Lobbyists
$6,250,000
Lawyers/Law Firms
$4,900,000
Misc Finance
$4,500,000

Obama has actually done a little better job of disclosing the source of his money than McCain.

This information is from OpenSecrets.org. Wikipedia says this about OpenSecrets: "The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) is a nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics, and the effect of money on elections and public policy.[1] Founded in 1983, the nonprofit Center aims to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more responsive government. CRP’s website OpenSecrets.org has won four Webby Awards (2001, 2002, 2006, 2007) for being the best politics site online. Support for CRP comes from a combination of foundation grants and individual contributions. The Center accepts no contributions from businesses, trade associations or labor unions."

Their lead story right now is on the funding of the campaigns. They say "For the first time ever in U.S. history, the candidates for president have raised more than $1 billion. To find out where all this money is coming from, click on the candidates' names below and explore the options to the left. The candidates now file campaign finance reports monthly. The reports for September are due October 20th."

karen said...

Gary, IBD (which is a newspaper, not a magazine) has a reputation for sound reporting. I look at many sources. Is it okay for money to come from foreign and fraudulent sources for ANY candidate? It is common knowledge that Obama is way short of his reporting responsibilities. This is not new and only from this one source--and he is disclosing now after being hounded about it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/us/politics/10donate.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
There's a left-wing source for you. October 9th from the NYTimes: "On Monday the Republican National Committee filed a complaint against the Obama campaign with the F.E.C., questioning the legitimacy of the more than $220 million in small donations to Mr. Obama’s campaign." $220 million in small donations--seems off from your source.
I also posted a report from Huffington Post. I've posted negative items about both candidates.

I don't know who opensecrets.org is accountable to, either. They take donations as well. Who watchdogs that? Wikipedia giving them props certainly doesn't impress me.
I think I'm being more than fair here, but I've noticed that not one person who supports Obama is open to any scrutiny of him.

Gary Means said...

Karen,
I can accept that you don't trust me or my source. Please go to the Federal Elections Commission page. Perhaps you don't trust the federal government numbers either.

Federal Elections Commision
Donations $200 and Under
$222,769,762

Individual
$426,902,991
PAC
$450
Party
$150
Candidate
$0

Transfers-In
$25,950,000
Disbursements
$376,652,205
Cash On Hand
$77,404,118


Figures from OpenSecrets.com
Individual contributions
$426,902,991
PAC contributions
$450
Candidate self-financing
$0
Federal Funds
$0
Other
$27,152,882
Report Date
09/21/2008
NOTE: All the numbers on this page are for the 2008 election cycle and based on Federal Election Commission data released electronically on Monday, September 29, 2008.

I read the NYT article you referenced.
"It appears that campaign finance records for Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, contain far fewer obviously false names, although he has taken in about $200 million in contributions, less than half Mr. Obama’s total. Mr. McCain did collect about $173,000 from donors who appear in campaign finance records with only a name and have no other identifying information.

Officials with campaign finance watchdog groups said that there was no proof of a widespread problem, but that the issue certainly warranted additional scrutiny.

Federal candidates are not required to itemize such contributions to the F.E.C. unless the donor’s cumulative total adds up to more than $200. Roughly 70 percent of these contributions to Mr. Obama are not reported, compared with more than 75 percent of Mr. McCain’s."

Hell yes, these things need to be investigated on both sides. If this is not illegal, then it sure should be. Does it surprise me? No. The DNC and the RNC are masters at this kind of thing. I don't believe that either John McCain or Barack Obama are told about these things so there can be plausible deniability.

If Colin Powell ran, he would do exactly the same thing. John McCain used to be a man of honor too. The reason Colin Powell did not run was because his wife begged him not to after the death threats he received when he was seriously considering running. Threats by the kind of people who attend seem to attend McCain/Palin rallies.

But I also believe ACORN should be examined as well as the usual Republican dirty tricks campaign to intimidate and disenfranchise minority voters.

"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."
- Conservative activist Paul Weyrich, at a 1980 training session for Christian conservatives

karen said...

"Threats by the kind of people who seem to attend McCain/Palin rallies."

I'm not running a campaign against either Democrats or Republicans. There are bigots and judgmental jerks on both sides. It's the candidates I don't like.

Someday said...

Thos "threats" that the media have widely reported never happened according to the Secret Service.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=7664458&version=1&locale=EN-US

For my part, I don't believe that Senator Obama has as many contributions from individuals as his campaign says. With that many individuals giving even the maximum amount of money allowed, one would expect him to have poll number far aboove 50%. So I am still skeptical that Senator Obama is accurately reporting his numbers.

Blessings