Political Giving Numbers

I have been enjoying It’s the Middle Class Stupid!  book by James Carville and Stan Greenberg. It is about how Washington and Wall Street messing things up for the average American. How our work has been devalued, rising education costs, and hard work not being rewarded. We all know James Carville, the zany political guru and perhaps Greenberg who is an outstanding pollster. They maintain political parties must own up to their failures and the electorate must regain its voice. It’s a humdinger book that shows no mercy. I think it is a must read for anyone involved in the 2012 election. I’m about half way through it but I thought I’d share some numbers they have come up with in their writing.

The job crash was the worst in March 2009. 2/3rds of those polled were angry at the big banks and financial institutions and big corporations for this. Six out of ten blamed the Bush administration, four of ten blamed consumers, and only one in five were angry with the Obama administration for this.

Later in the book they found that more were angry at the government for not doing its job; limiting risks, limiting corporate and consumer excesses and the like. In other words, people were asking for more government involvement and not less. They saw through the Bush “hands off” method as ineffective and contributing to national problems. People are angry at the government but not for the reasons the conservatives promote, they want more government not less.

The next section I want to share with you has to do with campaign contributions. Nixon had his Watergate scandal, but now with the help of the Supreme Court there is a lot blocking help for the middle class that is perfectly legal. The cost of winning a House race in 2010 was 1.4 million up 71% in the last decade. A Senate seat when up by a paltry 37%, $9.7 million. House campaigns are over $421 million so far this year. But this represents just a small number of supporters.

In 2010 a quarter of contributions came from 26,783 individuals, 0.01 percent of the population. I think we are familiar with that number of 1% of 1%. These folk gave at least $10,000 per person and averaged giving $28,913, which turns out to be about $2,000 more than the median income in this country.

Since Citizens United there has been a great increase given by the PACs; these are groups unaccountable to the public. They raised $100 million with an average donation of $47,718 which is nearly ten times what an individual can contribute to a campaign. No laws apply to them. Romney is taking full advantage of this. After Romney launched his campaign he had back to back fund raisers in Florida hosted by people who had already hit their personal giving limits. The afternoon host, Francis Rooney’s holding company is said to have given $1 million to Restore Our Future accompanied by Gerald and Darlene Jordan who gave $400,000 to that organization. Oil groups with an eye on their subsidies have given 31.9 million on the 2010 election and are keeping the giving up. Oil tycoons David and Charles Kock pledged $60 million to defeat President Obama.

Wall Street gives the most of all; three months into this year they have given $207.2 million to their candidates.

I guess that is enough numbers for now. It is a good read no matter what your political inclination is.