Blog subject request #1: Campaign Finance

I'm very flattered to have received a request for a blog entry on the subject of Barack Obama's campaign finances from reader PG. He writes:

'Obama campaign funding: aside from the small donations, where did it all come from? Will the large contributors ask for favors back when the time is right? Will it influence his decisions?'

Well, the President-Elect's campaign finance disclosure can be found here, listing his total campaign fund as 639.2 million dollars, of which $579,178,033 are listed as individual contributions (as opposed to PAC ($1,280), Party ($150) and Candidate ($0).

The individual contributor list is here, organized by the size of the contribution. If you'd prefer something a bit less unwieldy, you can download a state-by-state breakdown of the contributions here. You'll note that the locations I'm giving you are all on the official FEC site; I'm not personally hosting the files and everything I'm investigating is repeatable by a third party.

Rather than wade through the many, many pages of donations and identify trends and add up contributions from people sharing employers, I'm going to build on the work of others in the best traditions of both researches and lazy bums. I headed to opensecrets.org, a project run by the Center for Responsive Politics. The CRP says it accepts no funding contributions from businesses or labor unions and claims to be non-partisan.

CRP Disclaimer: The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families.

The list below is also far from exhaustive, I just picked the ones I found interesting.

First up is investment banker Goldman Sachs. Historically, this investment bank takes a close interest in economic policy, trade and legislation that affects the finance sector. It's heavily in favour of privitization of Social Security and deregulation of investment banking and the securities industry. It does make contributions to the Republican party, but tends to give most of it's contributions to Democrats.

Microsoft: The spellchecker in Microsoft Word doesn't recognise 'Royalism' as a vaid word and offers no substitutions, but it has no problem with 'Parliamentarianism'. Presumably this means Microsoft is opposed to the return of monarchical rule to the United States; on this basis I therefore assume that Obama has no intention of having himself coronated. On a more serious note, the manifesto of MSPAC seems to indicate it is in favor of education reform and technological innovation (and, one assumes, making money and disseminating Microsoft products as widely as possible). They currently have some admirable programs providing refurbished computers to underserved communities worldwide and are facilitating the improved information services in underserved parts of Europe and Africa.

Microsoft's public policy agenda states that they are in favor of economic growth through promotion of IP rights and protecting patent quality and apparently think that competition in software development is a GOOD thing. They like free trade and open markets, the internet as a vehicle of free expression and less restrictive immigration policies.

JPMorgan Chase & Co: a leading financial firm and one of the top consumer credit card issuers in the country. They lobby heavily on bankruptcy reform and banking deregulation.

Citigroup Inc: Oh, another banking firm! This one has a subsidiary called Salomon Smith Barney, which was implicated in the financing of Enron and WorldCom. In 1998 Citigroup helped repeal a federal law that prevented banks from getting into other businesses, and promptly acquired an insurance firm. Major interests include financial privacy, bankruptcy reform and terrorism reinsurance.

Time Warner: right now their major lobbying interest is the rules governing television ownership. They want the rules prohibiting cable TV stations from owning broadcast TV stations in the same market to be relaxed.

Sidley Austin LLP: International business lawfirm. They've got wide experience in just about all aspects of legal services. Barak Obama was a summer associate at their Chicago office and Michelle Obama was a full associate in Sidley's Austen office - they met while working at the firm. I seached briefly for some hint of an agenda for Sidley Austin, but I didn't turn up anything that I thought looked supportable, so I'm going to leave it at that for now.

Skadden, Arps et al: another law firm, more focussed on mergers and acquisition. Tend to support the Democrats more than the Republicans. Hosted a phone bank in support of Obama during the election.

Morgan Stanley: Another investment bank. Major proponent of privitizing Social Security and deregulation of the securities industry. Looks like they want to further extend their reach into financial services.

So there you have it PG, I think that answers the first part of your question. The second and third parts aren't really something I can answer though; I don't know the President-Elect personally and I can't see the future. That's something we're going to have to keep an eye on together.