The Huffington Post created a very enlightening tool called Fundrace2008 for voters to track how candidates for the 2008 presidential election are receiving campaign contributions.

In doing some simple searches to help better understand what kind of support Democratic candidates are receiving from different groups, I found the following results to be interesting:


80%, or $278 million of the $346 million, contributed went to a Democrat.

Contributions by Occupation:

• 92%, or $420K of the $455K, contributed by "actors" went to a Democrat.
• 79%, or $38 million of $48 million, contributed by "attorneys" went to a Democrat.
• 71%, or $4.5 million of the $6.3 million, contributed by "CEOs" went to a Democrat.
• 54%, or $232K of the $427K, contributed by "Doctors" went to a Democrat.
• 71%, or $1.6 million of the $2.25 million, contributed by "Teachers" went to a Democrat.
• 60%, or $132K of $220K, contributed by "Retail" workers went to a Democrat.

Contributions by Location:

• 77%, or $30 million of $39 million, contributed by "New York City" residents went to a Democrat.
• 87%, or $10.4 million of $12 million, contributed by "Chicago" residents went to a Democrat.
• 81%, or $8.7 million of $10.7 million, contributed by "Los Angeles" residents went to a Democrat.
• 69%, or $2.2 million of $3.2 million, contributed by "Miami" residents went to a Democrat.
• 58%, or $325K of $560K, contributed by "Kansas City" residents went to a Democrat.

Contributions by workers of Industry Leading Businesses:

• 54%, or $39K of $72K, contributed by employees of "General Electric" went to a Democrat.
• 72%, or $196K of $273K, contributed by employees of "IBM" went to a Democrat.
• 73%, or $222K of $305K, contributed by employees of "Microsoft" went to a Democrat.
• 64%, or $374K of $586K, contributed by employees of "Citigroup" went to a Democrat.
• 67%, or $108K of $161K, contributed by employees of "Comcast" went to a Democrat.

If money is going to determine the outcome of the 2008 presidential election (which I hope it doesn't - leadership and shared values should be the key), then the Democrats have got a tremendous lead across the board.

Personally, I maintain my position that Campaign Finance Reform is badly needed in the U.S.

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