campaign donations

This may just be a wild goose chase that could be explained by business owners typically donating to Republicans and Congressional districts that went against Obama are more sparsely populated so they aren't ideal locations for dealerships.

But in the meantime there are some very interesting findings from Doug Ross regarding the specific Chrysler dealers forced to close and their corresponding political donations.

Gateway Pundit also conjectures that specific counties and Congressional districts may have been targeted.

Reboot Congress is working on the list of closed dealers and their contributions.

This will definitely be something to check out over the next few days. It would be really interesting if there was a list of all Chrysler dealers and that list was sorted by 2008 net profit, political contributions, and whether or not they are being closed down. That could be eye-opening or it can squash any sort of conspiratorial thinking that something like this can foster.

Cross-posted at Truth v Machine.

We welcome the Sunlight Foundation for a post on S. 482, which would end the antiquated practice of Senators submitting their campaign finance forms to the Secretary of the Senate, and escaping the kind of easily searchable electronic disclosure required of House and Presidential candidates. -Patrick 

The Senate is not required to file their campaign finance reports with the FEC electronically.  The Sunlight Foundation believes these reports should be online in a as soon as possible so people can see who is contributing to candidates’ coffers before Election Day.  Earlier this year Sen. Feingold introduced Senate Bill 482, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act would require the Senate to file their campaign donation forms electronically. To build support for this bill we launched the Pass 482 campaign to get senators to understand how important it is for them to file their reports electronically so we the people can see them in a timely manner.  Right now the Senate can file on paper, which has to be sent to the FEC, and then the paper copies are sent to a company to be entered into a computer.  This is a waste of time and money.  The House, presidential candidates, and PACs have had to file electronically for 10 years the Senate should not be an exception.

This bill has no public opposition, and has 28 cosponsors. However, we want to build support for the bill because Sen. Pat Roberts from Kansas is rumored to want to add an amendment to this bill that would require organizations filing ethics complaints against senators to disclose their donors. This amendment has nothing to do with electronic filing and should be a stand alone bill and would block that passage of this non controversial bill.

Please call your senators and ask them to support S. 482. It’s time transparency is taken seriously by the Senate. This is a concrete step that can make it easier for everyone to get important information to voters.

 *Full Disclosure

I’m the online organizer for the Sunlight Foundation.

The Sunlight Foundation is a non-partisan non-profit dedicated to using the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency.

nthompson(at)sunlightfoundation(dot)com

H/T to NishaT whose Sunlight Foundation blog took me to OpenSecrets.org where I read this:

Hillary Clinton's endorsement of Barack Obama last month may not have been enough to win over some of her biggest donors. It seems Obama is struggling to gain favor with Clinton's financial supporters, while Republican John McCain is having some luck with them. In May, when Obama seemed to have his party's nomination in the bag, 115 donors who had given Clinton more than $1,000 donated at least that amount to Obama for the first time, according to CRP data cited in the Wall Street Journal. But an equal number also made their first big contributions to McCain that month. In 37 cases, the former Clinton supporters gave more money to McCain than they had contributed to Clinton, while that was true for only 19 Clinton donors who started giving to Obama. It will be interesting to look for movement by Clinton's donors in June, after she bowed out of the race, but that data won't become available until July 20.

This from the WSJ article referenced above:

An analysis of campaign-finance records conducted for The Wall Street Journal by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics shows that in May, when Sen. Obama was widely believed to have clinched the Democratic nomination, only one Hillraiser had switched allegiance to the Obama campaign. And while 115 individuals who had donated at least $1,000 to Sen. Clinton made their first donations to Sen. Obama, another 115 former Clinton backers made their first big donations to Sen. McCain.

The McCain campaign is pressing its case with former Clinton donors. Roughly two dozen big Clinton backers are looking to meet soon with Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive who is avidly supporting Sen. McCain. The idea, said one person familiar with the campaign's plans, is to pluck disaffected independents, and especially women, from the ranks of former Clinton supporters. A similar meeting occurred last month in Ohio between Ms. Fiorina and Clinton supporters, the McCain campaign said.

We all know the PUMAs are going to rise up for Hillary again in 2012, but in the meantime they are poised to be purrfectly helpful to McCain.  What good kitties! 

That's what I told the charming young volunteer from the RNC who just called requesting another donation to match the ones we made last month and the month before that and the month prior to that, back to January.  Not one more dime until Jonn McCain decides to lead from the top down to allow drilling in ANWR and block any global warming legislation until we have an unimpeded permit process for building as many nuclear power plants along the lines of the French and Japanese models as it takes to ensure uninterrupted power in our future.  Not one more dime until we determine to repair and strengthen the power grid and provide drought crisis management plans and security measures against sabotage.

"Yes ma'am, but if the Democrats take the White House then we won't have any chance of implementing the things you talk about".  To which I replied, "right, but what chance will we have of the Republicans circumventing the veto pen of a Republican President who is either against or has absolutely no agenda regarding these vital issues?".  "Ma'am, I'm just a citizen like you, I don't know what I can do except to tell you that we need your help to offset the millions that the Democrats are going to raise against us."  I thanked him for his public service, told him he was doing a wonderful job, and wished him the best of luck in his efforts to engage continuing contributions from other Republicans. 

I will vote for McCain in November, but I will divert every penny that I've consistently donated to him and the RNC into my gas tank until he rewrites the playbook on energy and environmental reform.  For now, I'm voting with my wallet.