Who’s Contributing to Democrats These Days?
From: Entitlement Syndrome
Because Not Just Anyone Can Cry Like A Baby!
Who’s Contributing to Democrats These Days?
August 24th, 2009 Author: Scott Michaels
entitlementsyndrome.com
With the battle over ObamaCare heating up to white-hot temperatures — which promise to become even hotter in the fall – I became a little curious today to see who the heavy hitters are, donations-wise, to Democrats in their fight to keep all those un-American, well-dressed mobs currently invading August town halls across the country from seizing the reins of power in a coup d’etat of astounding proportions.
Well, as Gomer Pyle would have once said; “Surprise, surprise!” Actually, what we found should come as no surprise, for the list is full of fat-cat groups and organizations, many of whom have a vested interest in ensuring something resembling H.R. 3200 (what we here fondly refer to as “ObamaCare”) passes, and NOT an actual, common sense set of reforms that might bring the costs associated with health care down, which should be the ultimate aim. Personally, I like what the recently-boycotted CEO of Whole Foods Markets, John Mackey, has put forth when it comes to health reform.
What Democrats — and by extension, Barack Obama — have in mind is a completely different animal, of course; but so far most Americans don’t seem to be falling for yet more feel-good snake oil packaged using pretty and shiny wrapping paper, so let’s see who the big contributor to all things Democrat is this year:
Naturally, the top spot’s occupied by our favorite group of folks; the lawyers. For 2008, they somehow managed to rub two nickels together to the tune of 126.8 million dollars . That was good for 78% of the total amount donated, with Barack Obama being that year’s top dollar gatherer.
Just as a side note; for 2008 our current president was the big recipient from 9 out of the Top-10 industries on the Open Secrets.org link I provided above. John McCain managed to break Barack Obama’s complete and total hegemony with an eked-out 9th-place from insurance industry groups. Maybe they saw the train barreling down the tracks at them and tried in their own weak way to somehow forestall their impending doom, what do you think?
Anyway, as of today, those wascally wabbit litigators are busily donating 84% of all their money (versus 15% to Republicans) for the 2010 campaign — currently at 13.1 million dollars — to people like Harry Reid, the top recipient of their money for 2010. Do you think the legal eagles know something we don’t?
Also, I have to say it: From what old Harry’s in-state Nevada polling looks like , he’s going to need every penny in order to buy his way back into the good graces of most Nevadans in 2010 (he’s getting beat like a rented mule by Danny Tarkanian, a real estate executive and former UNLV basketball player), so maybe they do have an insight us plebeians aren’t fortunate enough to possess.
The rest of the Top-10 for 2010 is filled with what Claude Rains — playing Captain Renault in 1942’s Casablanca – called “the usual suspects.” Health professionals, the building trades labor unions (#8), and the “retired” at #2. Boy, those old folks, who are giving at record rates to New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, must be feeling awesome about how their dues to AARP and other senior citizen advocacy groups are being spent.
By the way, no Republican makes the Top-10 for 2010 in terms of receiving money from any of these groups. With Reid at #1 and Gillibrand at #2, the rest of the hall of shame is mostly made up of Democrats either facing reelection or sitting on powerful congressional committees. The senior senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, garners top dollar from 4 out the 10 contributor groups, with Reid also raking in the most from another group besides the lawyers (#6; lobbyists).
Give him all your money or the glasses of death will hit you!
Blanche Lincoln, the sometime-liberal-sometimes pretending-to-be-conservative-but-still-really-a-liberal senator from Arkansas manages to bring home the artery-clogging bacon from that “health professionals” category listed in the Open Secrets.org website. Coincidentally — we’re sure — newspaper reports indicate that Lincoln’s also beginning to contract a case of the nerves and is desperately hoping she doesn’t have to cast an affirmative vote for ObamaCare any later than December of this year.
Sources also say if the fight drags into 2010, she’s going to engineer her own kidnapping so that she can claim it as the reason she was suddenly absent from the roll call should Mr. Obama’s signature piece of legislation somehow make it to the floor.
Am I in any way against people exercising their constitutional rights to free speech in donating to the politicians and candidates of their choice? Of course not. In fact, I think the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law passed in 2002 — which seems to me to have done far more harm than good – needs to be consigned to the dust bin.
What I become concerned about, though, is when I hear stories about Big Pharma and its 150 million dollars to be spent in advertising in support of ObamaCare. This amount, for those who don’t know, is more than the total of funds John McCain spent on advertising for his entire presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008.
Happily — at least in this moment in time — all those town hall anti-ObamaCare protestors and their homemade and hand-lettered signs seems to be giving the President’s extremely powerful allies a run for their money and may actually do what many a shaky-kneed Republican congressperson seems incapable of doing to Mr. Obama lately, which is stop an initiative of his in its tracks. Isn’t democracy wonderful? |
