2006 House Race Update

District 11: Money Flows

Here is my feeble attempt to analyze data from the Center for Responsive Politics, using information shamelessly stolen from the website Open Secrets. Any errors in this data are unintentional and will be corrected if you point them out to me before I find them, right now my eyes are crossed from looking back and forth from my hand-written copy as I type them into another machine, then will save to flash drive and uploaded to the internet from a public terminal. I really need a laptop bad, huh?

Update
Oh, it gets worse...Blogger for Word stripped out all my pretty tables and I had to re-type the blasted mess all over. Grrrrr !!!

And please note: This is the first time I’ve used tables in Windows 2003, so I’m not going for style, just data transmission and analysis from my perspective.

I hope all the tables are self-explanatory.


Table I. Donations by Metro Area

Representative Charles H. Taylor (R) Challenger Heath Shuler (D)

Asheville, TN 84,808 Knoxville, TN 103,700
Washington, DC 37,740 Tri-Cities, TN 16,800
Atlanta, GA 6,000 Asheville, NC 16,700
West Palm, FL 5,000 Nashville, TN 9,200
Hickory-Morg&Lenoir, NC 4,900 Jackson, TN 6,700



Table II. Donations by top ten zip codes



Representative Charles H. Taylor (R) Challenger Heath Shuler (D)


28803 Asheville, NC 15,720 28786 Waynesville, NC 16,450
28712 Brevard, NC 14,050 37919 Knoxville, TN 16,350
28804 Asheville, NC 11,293 28713 Bryson City, NC 13,580
20003 Washington, DC 10,750 37922 Knoxville, TN 12,500
28730 Fairview, NC 8,500 37912 Knoxville, TN 12,300
28813 Asheville, NC 7,650 28771 Robbinsville, NC 12,300
28806 Asheville, NC 7,450 37923 Knoxville, TN 9,800
28732 Fletcher, NC 7,350 37662 Kingsport, TN 8,400
28801 Asheville, NC 7,200 38305 Jackson, TN 6,400
28714 Burnsville, NC 6,900 37909 Knoxville, TN 6,200





Commentary

Most of Charles Taylor’s donations are coming from inside the district, while Heath Shuler’s donations are coming from outside the voting district…most of it from where he settled after his stint in the National Football League.


This next section will cover donations from Political Action Committees, or PACs.

Table III. PAC donations by Business, Labor, and Ideological

Representative Charles Taylor (R) Challenger Heath Shuler (D)

Business 173,807 6,500
Labor 3,000 55,500
Ideological 41,607 97,700





Table IV. Top Industries represented by PAC

Representative Charles H. Taylor (R) Challenger Heath Shuler (D)

Misc Business 94,323 Ideology/Single Issue 100,800
Agribusiness 71,386 Labor 55,500
Ideology/Single Issue 41,607 Finance/Insur/R Estate 40,050
Lawyers & Lobbyists 40,678 Construction 32,900
Construction 34,450 Other 25,150
Energy/Nat Resources 22,900 Lawyers & Lobbyists 14,850



Now we will look at the donations by Industry as self-reported by the donor.

Representative Charles Taylor (R) Challenger Heath Shuler (D)

Casinos/Gambling 51,383 Leadership PACs 60,200
Leadership PACs 33,507 Candidate Cmtes 26,500
Lobbyists 26,828 General Contractors 26,100
Retired 25,545 Real Estate 20,500
Forestry & For. Prod. 13,850 Industrial Unions 15,500
Agricult.Svcs/Prod. 13,450 Lawyers/Law Firms 14,850
Real Estate 12,450 Democratic/Liberal 14,100
General Contractors 11,500 Public Sector Unions 12,000


Commentary

On the Taylor side, I have problems with the money from people in the casino/gambling, the lawyers, and the real estate sectors.
On the Shuler side, I have problems with the leadership PACs, candidate committees, real estate, ALL the unions, lawyers, and , of course, the democratic/liberal.

You can go here to sift through the information for yourself. I didn’t include the other two candidates because there was none to be found, which to me, indicates those campaigns are examples of what I would call grassroots…or they have enough of their own money to suit their objectives.

The thing that bothers me most is the influx of money from outside the district, as the Democratic Strategists attempt to gain a seat.

The thing that bothers me secondly is the AmeriPAC support of Heath Shuler. This is a conservative PAC, that has proudly supported George W. Bush, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, Newt Gingrich and John Ashcroft. It has opposed Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle and John Kerry. I suppose that politics makes for strange bedfellows sometimes.

I wonder how Heath Shuler would vote, his conscience, or how those in the liberal leadership voted, if, in the unlikely event he was to be elected? I believe either the current incumbent, or his republican challenger John Armor would be more in line with my beliefs.