Posted on 08/21/2004 3:17:56 PM PDT by N.Z. Bear
Summary: OpenSecrets.org shows that the Kerry-Edwards campaign has a 76% compliance rate with FEC disclosure provisions for campaign contributions, compared to 91% on average for congressional campaigns, and 93% for the Bush-Cheney campaign.
See original article at The Truth Laid Bear ; text included below.
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Just noticed something interesting when comparing Kerry's campaign contributions against President Bush's over at OpenSecrets.org. The OpenSecrets folks track the "quality of disclosure" associated with campaign contributions, described as follows:
"BEST EFFORTS" RULES: When making solicitations, candidates, PACs and party committees must make "best efforts" to obtain and report the name, address, occupation and employer of each contributor who gives more than $200 in a calendar year. In order to show that the committee has made "best efforts," solicitations must specifically request that information and inform contributors that the committee is required by law to use its best efforts to collect and report it.
Most members of Congress fully identify the great majority of their donors' occupations and employers — an important point, if voters are to see the economic interests giving to their representative's campaign.
In the 2000 elections, the average member of Congress fully identified 91% of their contributors' occupations and employers. Seven percent of the occupations were left blank, and the rest were incomplete.
According to the current OpenSecrets data, Bush's stats are:
Full Disclosure: $156,147,934 (93.0%)
Incomplete: $2,378,738 (1.4%)
No Disclosure: $9,309,250(5.5%)
Kerry's, on the other hand, are:
Full Disclosure: $85,533,842 (76.4%)
Incomplete: $762,427 (0.7%)
No Disclosure: $25,619,547 (22.9%)
Bush's 93% compliance seems quite in line with OpenSecrets' 91% average from past Congressional campaigns, but Kerry's number, at 76%, is wildly out of wack.
I'm not a campaign finance expert, so I don't really know what to make of this. Since the data comes from contributors themselves it isn't clear to me whether you can really fault the Kerry campaign for the deficiency --- unless they are supposed to refuse contributions that don't provide adequate disclosure, and that doesn't seem to be the case under FEC regulations as I understand them.
Anybody with more knowledge of such things than I care to chime in?
Update: Digging further, here are the 'Full Disclosure' stats for the other candidates in this year's race:
Dennis Kucinich: 91.2 %
Lyndon H. Larouche Jr: 91.0 %
Ralph Nader: 90.3 %
Al Sharpton: 91.2 %
Carol Moseley Braun: 92.5 %
Wesley Clark: 70.8 %
Howard Dean: 92.6 %
John Edwards: 87.8 %
Dick Gephardt: 89.2 %
Bob Graham: 87.1 %
Joe Lieberman: 92.5 %
So other than Wes Clark, Kerry's campaign is significantly below (by over 10%) any other candidate (even the less-than-serious-ones) in this year's race.
Update Again: Those handy folks at OpenSecrets have a single page which shows all candidates' disclosure statistics.
I'm sure the NYT will start running editorials criticizing the Bush campaign for having almost ten percent of its donors not fully dislclosed.
A simple look at major Edwards donors by zipcode shows numerous instances of "paralegals" and :executive assistants" making $1,000 to $2,000 contributions, which THEY CANNOT AFFORD. And this is just among the contributors who DID state their occupations.
I suggest that the gap in information about Kerry donors is not accidental, but deliberate. I suggest that this is the tip of the iceberg consisting of illegal contributions to Kerry/Edwards from the kind of sneaky contributors that Edwards attracts, namely lawyers.
Congressman Billybob
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Yeah, I've known about this for over a month. I thought it was a very interesting statistic...
I think Kerry's contributors don't want their affiliations to be recorded.
Being the socialists that they are, they have no drive or desire to work to show disclosure. Maybe someone in the god of government will swoop in and do it for them.
$156 & $112 Million, just to get elected president.
They are both out of Whack, if you look at it that way.
That may, indeed, be part of the problem, but Kerry's numbers were way off before Edwards became his boy toy. I posted this at my site regarding the earlier number in July. I'm pretty sure that figure represented the numbers for contributions to 5/31. These current numbers (again, I think - opensecret doesn't list the date on the disclosure page) may only represent contributions through 6/30.
I emailed the Story to Drudge. It's a pretty good tactic to get the story out into the mainstream media. I see DRUDGE as the crossover point between the "internet media" and the "mainsteam media".
Very interesting site. Do you know if there is a similar site for local elections, for example elections of county officials?
It is factually correct to say (which really bugs the demoSWINE to say) that....
I'm sure that the NYTimes will stick with the percentage comparison, though on every other figure that they like to cite, they will only use absolute dollars (i.e., the deciet has gone up by $200 Billion...no mention of how that increase relates to the other indicators).
It is always these like tricks that the lefties like to play with the public. Disgusting. As Paleo Conservative points out, I won't be shocked when the libertards at the NYTimes actually run a story about (and only about) the 10% that Bush yet to disclose, even if it is about 1/3rd less than John Kerry.
Every time the plug a hole in their not-so-swift boat another two holes appear.
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