Money money money

Chron:

An analysis by the Houston Chronicle of the $25 million raised by the four major candidates between last year and the first six months of this year found key donors with interests ranging from energy and tort laws to food processing and home building.

Their contributions ranged from $50,000 to $850,000.

Texas is one of seven states with no limits on the size of campaign contributions. Critics say the absence of limits has created super-donors who wield a disproportionate amount of political power.

As opposed to federal campaign laws, where super-money raisers and bundlers wield a disproportionate amount of political power...but we often don't get full disclosure of who those people are. Plus, the federal laws encourage non-disclosure by shunting money off to shadowy third-party groups.

Democracies are very messy things. Politicians and officeholders will owe somebody when they get elected; that's the nature of a democracy. We absolutely need the media to report on things like this, but I wish there wasn't always a cynical, sardonic tone. Note: this article is more cynical than sardonic...and this article isn't even that bad.

This bit made me laugh:

Bell is picking up support from traditional Democratic funders in the wake of some recent polls showing Strayhorn lagging, Guntert said.

"Chris Bell is very, very proud to be a Democrat," he said. "There's no downside to being a Democrat and getting the support of big Democratic donors."

No downside to getting the support of big Democratic donors? I know Ms. Guntert is a spinmeister for Chris Bell, but everyone knows big Democratic donors in the state of Texas means trial lawyers. Relatively recent history suggests that there is potentially a very large downside to getting the support of big Democratic trial lawyer donors.

Posted by Evan @ 09/27/06 08:26 AM

 
 

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