I stumbled across this nugget from Opensecrets
So far for the 2008 election cycle the largest single donor is Actblue, an online bundler of small donors for Democratic Candidates and Organizations:
1 ActBlue $9,959,543
2 Goldman Sachs $3,644,396
3 Citigroup Inc $2,926,918
4 AT&T Inc $2,465,904
5 JPMorgan Chase & Co $2,417,051
6 Morgan Stanley $2,177,730
7 Operating Engineers Union $2,040,575
8 UBS AG $1,924,891
9 Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $1,803,485
10 National Assn of Realtors $1,802,000
To put this in some perspective the next five special interests together exceed that amount raised and there are over 50 others donating over $1,000,000 in a mix of industrial and union interests. And over $1.6 Billion has been raised for the Presidential, Senate and House Races so far.
But it is impressive to consider how far and how fast the influence of small individual donors is coming along with the use of the internet. And yet I didn’t notice a Conservative counterpart to ActBlue on the list. I wonder why?
Born 1950, Married, Living in Austin Texas, Semi
Retired Small Business owner and investor. My political interest
evolved out of his business experience that the best decisions come out of an objective gathering of information and a pragmatic consideration of costs and benefits. I am interested in promoting Centrist candidates and Policies. My posts are mostly about people and policies that I believe are part of the solution rather the problem.