Wirt Atmar writes:
>
> > I heard about this on the radio on the way home tonight.  It's the list
of
> >  biggest political donors over the last 13 years.  Pretty interesting.
> >
> >  http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/toporgs/topdonors.asp
>
> The things you must pay attention to in any such list are its intrinsic
> biases. Ken's list is a list of the largest political donor organizations,
> and as such, it would seem to favor the Democrats as the recipients of the
> lion's share of political donations.
>
> That isn't true of course. The Republicans take in far more money than do
the
> Democrats. It's just that the Democrats don't have very many "fat cats,"
thus
> they must depend on donations made from organizations, most of which are
> labor unions, and which are the basis of Ken's list.

Actually, opensecrets.org (The Center for Responsive Politics) groups
individual contributions together with the individual's employer, so Ken
Lay's contributions get grouped with Enron, which is #77 on the list.  After
all, corporations are not allowed to give money directly to candidates.

The top 100 break down like this
Businesses and business associations - 68 organizaions
$623 million  41% to Democrats, 59% to Republicans

Labor - 27 organizations
$346 million  94% to Democrats, 6% to Republicans

Ideological Donors - 5 organizations
$40 million  68% to Democrats, 32% to Republicans

http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/toporgs/party.asp

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