Who Gives?

Larison and Jonah weigh in on that Michael Franc piece on campaign giving I just linked to (and make similar points, in a rare convergence). Meanwhile, Matt emails to say that he's having trouble duplicating Franc's results:

I just went over to the FEC website and did a search for contributions from people who listed their occupation as "electrician" and I didn't come up with any donations to any GOP presidential candidates. Overwhelmingly, electricians seem to have given money to the IBEW PAC. I ran it with "carpenter" in the employer field and the overall contributions there seem to favor Democratic presidential candidates and a lot of the Giuliani donors don't seem to actually be carpenters but instead folks like Jeff Corben who have "Carpenter Hazlewood LLC / Attorney" in their employer/occupation field.

Maybe he's looking in the wrong place, but it would be helpful if Franc could provide some more details on his data.

Comments

Baseline:

552M to Democrats, 348M to Republicans.

I'll also note that the "employer / occupation" field is both non-specific and optional. Do any quick name search and you'll find people who did not disclose their employer or occupation.

Further, given that some people disclose occupation and some disclose employer, there's no way to know what percentage of people with a particular job you're getting, and whether they are a representative sample.

Posted by DivGuy | May 8, 2008 1:18 PM

Michael Franc: "the Democrats carry the bartenders and the Republicans the waitresses"

Data:

Not a single person who disclosed the occupation "waitress" has given to a presidential campaign in this cycle.

Michael Franc: "Republicans successfully woo contributions from the skilled craftsmen who turn their blueprints into reality — specifically, contractors, hardhats, plumbers, stonemasons, electricians, carpenters mechanics, and roofers."

Among people who listed their occupation as carpenter, I found:

$225 to the RNC
$1000 to Edwards
$500 to Obama

Posted by DivGuy | May 8, 2008 1:27 PM

I'm confused about this database.

I've given $25 to Obama. I'm not in the database. I can't find anyone who's given less than $200 in the database.

It's possible that there's some other database that Franc has access to, or it's possible that he's using desperately incomplete data.

Posted by DivGuy | May 8, 2008 1:35 PM

"If McCain is a populist, I am a Sandanista (sic)."

You know, it's a damn shame that McCain is not actually a populist. Because I would pay good money for footage of Daniel Larison raiding a Central American plantation with an AK and a team of ski mask-clad desperados.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | May 8, 2008 1:38 PM

Candidates must identify, for example, all PACs and party committees that give them contributions, and they must identify individuals who give them more than $200 in an election cycle.

FEC website

There is no searchable database of donors who give less than $200. Obama has received 43% of his total donations from people who gave less than $200.

This is completely worthless. Shocked, I'm sure.

Posted by DivGuy | May 8, 2008 1:51 PM

Take a deep breath, DivGuy. Perhaps Larison will give us the details.

Posted by Ferrell | May 8, 2008 2:04 PM

Just because I love dominating the thread, here's another

Small Donors Are Often Repeat Donors: One important fact about small donors is that they are available for repeat contributions. In the month of February alone, for example, Obama received nearly $5 million from repeat donors who gave 112,620 individual small contributions (less than $200) that were itemized only because the donor had crossed the $200 aggregate contribution threshold for disclosure. (These 112,620 contributions represent nearly 70% of the number of his 162,098 itemized contributions in February.) Clinton received $4.3 million in 61,731 contributions of the same description. (These represent 65% of her 95,175 itemized contributions in February.) We have no way to know how many multiple donors have not yet triggered the $200 disclosure threshold, or how many may do so in coming months. This may signify a new awakening of a donor group that, for want of a better label, might be thought of as a lower-middle group. Whatever the label, these donors have not been very visible before. In past years, most donors have given cumulatively either less than $200 or more than $1,000, with few in the middle.

Campaign Finance Institute

The data that would be necessary to do this analysis simply does not exist. Small donors are not disclosed.

Posted by DivGuy | May 8, 2008 2:06 PM

It wouldn't be the first time the National Review has printed blatant falsehoods. Do they even have a fact checking department?

Posted by Katherine | May 8, 2008 4:27 PM

Katherine wonders: "It wouldn't be the first time the National Review has printed blatant falsehoods. Do they even have a fact checking department?"

Yes, but it's located in Jonah Goldberg's ass, and no one can figure out how to use it because his head is in the way.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | May 8, 2008 5:25 PM

This data is not reliable and this is something Ross really needs to get on - 43% of Senator Obama's donors fall below the threshold you need to reach for them to demand you occupation, making any claims about where the little guys choose to donate their money absurd.

I say this is something that Mr. Douthat needs to get on because he is trying to draw up a genuinely new GOP narrative, and doing so on the basis of false data is not going to cut it. It is fine for the National Review to do so - every partisan magazine likes to publish articles telling it's members, "see, those lies they say about us aren't true, and we're the ones who are really popular with / knowledgeable about X" (think here of Democratic claims to be the new part of the common soldier). For someone like Mr. Douthat, though, who is genuinely trying to create a new vision for the party, such delusions really are inappropriate and damaging to his cause.

Posted by Vermando | May 8, 2008 6:31 PM

43% of Senator Obama's donors fall below the threshold you need to reach for them to demand you occupation, making any claims about where the little guys choose to donate their money absurd.

It's actually worse than that. It's 43% of Obama's money raised that has come from donations of $200 or less, for which donor name and occupation are not disclosed. These small donors account for 80% of the donors, maybe more.

Posted by DivGuy | May 8, 2008 7:31 PM