Monday, July 07, 2008

Bulletin: Big donors spread their bets

The Wall Street Journal, reporting that Obama is having trouble winning over some big donors to Hillary Clinton's campaign, cites this seemingly troubling info:
Meanwhile, 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 (my emphasis).
Is this really so surprising? Hillary had the early support of many wealthy donors who like to back a winner; many were Wall Street moguls who more often give to Republicans, or in any case give more to Republicans. Such donors often give to both parties. When it became clear that Hillary was not going to become President this time around, a significant number of big donors spread their bets.

Note also that an unspecified number of those $1000 Hillary donors had already given some money to McCain prior to Hillary's dropping out. And in the claim that "115 former Clinton backers made their first big donations to Sen. McCain" in May, "big" is not defined.

Questions: how many of the 115 Obama and 115 McCain donors cited above gave money to both in May? How many of them were registered Democrats, or in the past gave exclusively or predominately to Democrats? And how many big Hillary donors gave to Obama and/or McCain in June, after Hillary dropped out?

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