Way back in January I wrote over at Forbes about how the Democrats have become the party of the rich:
If you brought back either of the Roosevelts—Teddy or Franklin—from the grave, the most astonishing thing they would find is that the “malefactors of great wealth” have become the benefactors of today’s liberalism, and Democrats have become the party of the rich. In the economic crisis of the 1930s, the rich hated FDR. Most of today’s rich love Barack Obama—so much so that Washington D.C. area airports ran out of space to handle all of the private jets flying in the well-heeled for both of his inaugurals. Forget the “limousine liberals” of the 1960s and 1970s, sending their own kids to private schools while advocating forced busing for everyone else; behold today’s burgeoning class of “Gulfstream liberals,” who jet about the globe while fretting about global warming.
Now the Associated Press has figures for the election season just past, and surprise, surprise, surprise!
For as often as Democrats attack the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch for their heavy spending on politics, it’s actually the liberal-minded who shelled out the most cash in the just completed midterm elections.Among the top 100 individual donors to political groups, more than half gave primarily to Democrats or their allies. Among groups that funneled more than $100,000 to allies, the top of the list tilted overwhelmingly toward Democrats — a group favoring the GOP doesn’t appear on the list until No. 14.The two biggest super PACs of 2014? Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC — both backing Democrats.In all, the top 10 individual donors to outside groups injected almost $128 million into this year’s elections. Democratic-leaning groups collected $91 million of it.Among the 183 groups that wrote checks of $100,000 or more to another group, Democrats had a 3-to-1 cash advantage. The biggest player was the National Education Association, at $22 million. Not a single Republican-leaning group cracked the top 10 list of those transferring money to others.
Meanwhile, CrowdPac, as reported by Business Insider, has done a profession-by-profession analysis of political giving, and surprise, surprise, surprise, the entertainment industry and college professors lean heavily Democratic. But there are some surprises, such as the apparent fact that auto dealers and the pharmaceutical industry lean slightly to the left in their political giving. This is probably because of the strong-arming of the auto bailout and Obamacare. (From what some auto dealers told me about the strong-arming that came with the GM bailout, it ought to be the kind of national scandal that would make a reporter’s career—if we had any reporters not in the bag for Democrats.) The most conservative professions: mining, agriculture, oil and gas, real estate. In other words, people who make the material goods the service and knowledge sectors depend on.
Here are some of the summary charts, but do read the whole thing for everybody:
Click to embiggen.
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