Most of the Dayton blogs are either political or have a political subtext. This "political" character is either ideological (usually some species of conservatism) or national (talking about aspects national politics). I'm not really into politics anymore, but still enjoy the mechanics/horse race aspect of it.
To run campaigns, particularly statewide and national campaigns, one needs money. One way of tracking money and the popularity of candidates with big donors is via the Fundrace site. This was a lot of fun in 2004 as they not only listed large (over $200) contributors by street address and also by zip code, but also provided maps of the US by county and 3-digit zip. The larger US metro areas had maps showing donor clusters (for Ohio I think they only had Cincy and Cleveland).
In 2004 Fundrace was stand-alone. FundRace2008 appears to be hosted by left-liberal blog "The Huffington Post". They have the early money primary race contributors online. This was my source for Dayton area donor data.
Taking a closer look at the Dayton area, I tabulated the results for 47 zip codes (including Tipp City, Springboro, Waynesville, and eastern Greene County) for Dayton & suburbs.
Of these 27 had contributors, with the top zips in both # of contributors and money being in the Far Hills corridor: 45458 and 45459 (Centerville), 45429 (Kettering), and 45419 and 45409 (Oakwood/UD/Southern Hills areas). Th anomaly was a large household contribution (3 people at the same address giving to the same candidate) in the Germantown area: $9,200 to John McCain. I don't count that as in the top five.
Here is how the donors sorted out by the familiar Red & Blue color scheme:
How it breaks out by party. The GOP has the expected distribution, with Romney #1 followed by Giuliani (this data is probably from before Fred Thompson joined the race). For the minor candidates, in this area Brownback leads Ron Paul (the single military officer donor contributed to Brownback) for large contributions.
The Democrats show Obama being quite popular with the local donors, followed by Clinton. Unexpectedly, New Mexico politician Bill Richardson came in number three, beating out Edwards. 
Note again these are large contributions. The volume of small donors...the $20 and $50 contributions...is not shown here.
I might revisit as we head into the primary season and general election.
If one is interested in 2004 contributions, that info is still online.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Politics: (big) Early Money.
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2 comments:
I'm not a fan of a lot of the Dayton blogs for that very reason. All this political crap is mind-numbing after a while and the people that are mega into it seem to be negative and angry 80% of the time.
I sort am interested in local politics and how they play into urban affairs (which is why I like Esrati a bit, though he is annoying).
However. I really am not into national politics. I tuned that out after 2004.
Poltical involvment goes way back for me, and it was in the practical side of it, which is why I am not that into ideology.
When I was in high school, and a bit in college, in Kentucky, the guy I used to do odd-jobs for, "The Colonel", was also a precinct captain, and he had me do all the usual precinct work and also electioneering on election day (this was an excused absence in Kentucky).
The Colonel was too busy with his various little buisnesses and pretty much let me do the legwork...things like ringing doorbells, putting up signs, electioneering at the polling place, and working with the precinct captain from the other party to purge the voter rolls (this was done door to door, by hand, back then). I would usually pick up some small paychecks for this work, but it was fun and helped me work on my shyness (politics as therapy?). One time we got some free tickets to a country music show in Frankfort as a freebee for pollworkers.
Then, when The Colonel decided to run for State Rep I did the same thing, but in a bunch of different precincts. I really go to know the South End of Louisville really well, though.
I also did a bit of that precinct work for a mayorial campaign in Sacramento.
My dad did similar "ward heeler" work when he was a young man in Chicago, but his payoff was patronage job offers from the CPD & sanitation dept.
Chicago and Kentucky both have strong local political "culture", in their own ways. For example, I had classmates in high school that were nicknamed after politicians, who had the same surname. You'd never see that here.
For some reason local politics in Dayton seems (to me) to be this rather drab and denatured thing, which might be why people talk about national stuff a lot, or ideology. And also this is what they're fed by talk radio, the news networks, and political books. All this is more naitonal and ideological, not local.
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