Democratic donors opened their wallets WIDE in Orange County, where the top four contenders for the Presidential nomination raised a combined total of over $840,000 in the first half of 2007.
A brief analysis of publicly available data from the Federal Elections Commission – www.fec.gov – shows Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson raising $840,960 from donors reporting residences in OC zip codes. The campaign finance reports, covering the first two quarters of the year, report report only individuals who gave more than $200 to a single candidate. The maximum contribution to any candidate at the federal level is $2,300 for an individual donor.
Candidate   Jan 1 – Mar 30   Apr 1 – Jun 30   Jan – June
…      $$ (Contribs.)   $$ (Contribs.)    $$ (Contribs.)
Hillary Clinton…..11,750 (6) 278,064 (238) 289,814 (244)
John Edwards…..86,525 (76) 88,435 (172) 174,960 (248)
Barack Obama…..94,904 (165) 167,577 (265) 262,481 (430)
Bill Richardson…..74,100 (55) 39,605 (62) 113,705 (117)
TOTAL…………..267,279 (302) 573,681 (737) 840,960 (1039)
Why the hell is Frank Barbaro allowing these guys to come to town and suck all the air out of the room, along with all the money and take it out of OC?
That money should stay here in OC and help local candidates get elected.
Paul,
You’re seeing the half-empty glass again. This is an OPPORTUNITY for the DPOC to reach out to new people who have written a decent check to a Democratic candidate. Introduce them to local elected and candidates. Get them involved with local organizations, etc.
Did you have any particular local candidate in mind?
Oh yeah, a new fun toy on the FEC website – you can see WHO gave HOW much $$ to a particular candidate from your zip code region (926xx, 927xx, etc) by going here:
http://www.fec.gov/DisclosureSearch/mapApp.do?drillLevel=state&stateName=CA&cand_id=P00000001
I was up half the night! But I’m a data geek.
Paul,
I have known for quite some time this money exists in THE OC for Democrats. There is some major money here. During the 2004 Presidential Election, Tim Steed and I talked about it, and came to a conclusion. Look at the current makeup of the Central Committee, look at some of the stunts and ridiculous resolutions they continue to push.
If you had a few grand to give, would you give it to an organization where a small but loud minority control the purse strings. Things have improved immensely since 2004. We have more level headed Central Committee members and now we even have a paid full time Executive Director to run the day to day functions. We do have a chance to show them that the DPOC is a viable investment worth their time. We need to support Melahat in the job she does and we need to contain the kooks so they don’t scare off the donors like they have scared off so many potential activists.
The money is there and now we have a real chance to convince these folks to keep the money in THE OC.
Claudio
Paul—-So Barbaro is supposed to get a court order preventing the campaigns from harvesting sawbucks from the OC? Get real. it’s a free country and people have a right to give to whom they want. Ed’s right–this should be looked at as a half full glass. These are decent leads although many will not give to the Party, sometimes because of the reasons Claudio references.
Its one thing to urge Barbaro and the Party to urge contributors of presidential and U.S. senate campaigns to give locally. That’s a good role for he and other Dems to follow. It’s quite another thing to try to urge him to set up roadblocks at the County line to prevent Dem campaigns from raising much needed cash from a relatively well off county.