Based on the July 2007 Quarterly Finance Reports to the Federal Elections Commission, Ron Paul is the most supported candidate in terms of financial support by Military Personnel and Military Veterans.Units are contributions in dollars, rounded to the nearest dollar, by employees of the respective military organizations.
Source: Finance Reports for the 2007 July Quarterly.
I have included the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, as well as the Army National Guard, Air National Guard, Coast Guard and any military veterans.
These statistics include the contributions of employees who recorded or indicated their military branch. Contributions where no employer was specified were naturally not included.
One statistic of note that I'd like to shed a little further light on is the contribution numbers of Barack Obama. It has recently been revealed that Obama has been counting anyone who bought a ticket to one of his speeches, bought a bumper sticker, t-shirt, coffee mug etc... as a campaign contributor by having them also give their information and counting the money as campaign donations, thus giving him an extraordinarily high number of contributors and an inflated total of donation dollars. At this time I am not aware of any of the other candidates using such methods.
Even given Obama's dubious campaign finance reporting, he still trails behind Ron Paul.
| All 2008 Presidential Candidates | |||||||
| Name | Total | Army | USN | USAF | USMC | USCG | Vet |
| Ron Paul | 24,965 | 6,975 | 6,765 | 4,650 | 1,500 | 0 | 5,075 |
| Barack Obama | 22,866 | 10,535 | 1,206 | 5,695 | 650 | 250 | 4,531 |
| John McCain | 17,425 | 6,925 | 6,305 | 1,795 | 1,600 | 0 | 800 |
| Hillary Clinton | 10,550 | 0 | 3,550 | 400 | 0 | 0 | 6,600 |
| Bill Richardson | 5,325 | 425 | 750 | 2,400 | 0 | 0 | 1,750 |
| Mitt Romney | 3,851 | 2,351 | 0 | 1,500 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| John Edwards | 2,504 | 250 | 1,360 | 645 | 250 | 0 | 0 |
| Rudy Giuliani | 2,320 | 1,450 | 370 | 250 | 0 | 0 | 250 |
| Mike Huckabee | 1,750 | 250 | 0 | 500 | 1,000 | 0 | 0 |
| Tom Tancredo | 1,550 | 100 | 0 | 300 | 150 | 0 | 1,000 |
| Duncan Hunter | 1,000 | 0 | 1,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Joe Biden | 800 | 0 | 500 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 300 |
| Mike Gravel | 150 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sam Brownback | 71 | 71 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dennis Kucinich | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 |
| Tommy Thompson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Chris Dodd | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jim Gilmore | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| John Cox | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Republican Party Candidates | |||||||
| Name | Total | Army | USN | USAF | USMC | USCG | Vet |
| Ron Paul | 24,965 | 6,975 | 6,765 | 4,650 | 1,500 | 0 | 5,075 |
| John McCain | 17,425 | 6,925 | 6,305 | 1,795 | 1,600 | 0 | 800 |
| Mitt Romney | 3,851 | 2,351 | 0 | 1,500 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rudy Giuliani | 2,320 | 1,450 | 370 | 250 | 0 | 0 | 250 |
| Mike Huckabee | 1,750 | 250 | 0 | 500 | 1,000 | 0 | 0 |
| Tom Tancredo | 1,550 | 100 | 0 | 300 | 150 | 0 | 1,000 |
| Duncan Hunter | 1,000 | 0 | 1,000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sam Brownback | 71 | 71 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tommy Thompson | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jim Gilmore | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| John Cox | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Democratic Party Candidates | |||||||
| Name | Total | Army | USN | USAF | USMC | USCG | Vet |
| Barack Obama | 22,866 | 10,535 | 1,206 | 5,695 | 650 | 250 | 4,531 |
| Hillary Clinton | 10,550 | 0 | 3,550 | 400 | 0 | 0 | 6,600 |
| Bill Richardson | 5,325 | 425 | 750 | 2,400 | 0 | 0 | 1,750 |
| John Edwards | 2,504 | 250 | 1,360 | 645 | 250 | 0 | 0 |
| Joe Biden | 800 | 0 | 500 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 300 |
| Mike Gravel | 150 | 0 | 0 | 150 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dennis Kucinich | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 50 |
| Chris Dodd | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Percentages:
| All 2008 Presidential Candidates | |||
| Name | Percentage | Name | Percentage |
| Ron Paul | 26.23 | Duncan Hunter | 1.05 |
| Barack Obama | 24.02 | Joe Biden | 0.84 |
| John McCain | 18.31 | Mike Gravel | 0.16 |
| Hillary Clinton | 11.08 | Sam Brownback | 0.07 |
| Bill Richardson | 5.59 | Dennis Kucinich | 0.05 |
| Mitt Romney | 4.05 | Tommy Thompson | 0 |
| John Edwards | 2.63 | Chris Dodd | 0 |
| Rudy Giuliani | 2.44 | Jim Gilmore | 0 |
| Mike Huckabee | 1.84 | John Cox | 0 |
| Tom Tancredo | 1.63 | ||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Based on a smaller, incomplete sample of the Republican Party from http://thespinfactor.com/thetruth/2007/07/16/military-support-for-the-republican-candidates.
I wondered what the results were for all of the Republican and Democratic candidates and decided to go through the data myself and compile a full listing of all the candidates listed with the Federal Election Commission for the July 2007 Campaign Finance Report.
13 comments:
How sure are you about these numbers? According to a commenter (Phil) at Swampland, Obama's total is much higher than shown:
Here's Obabma's military related donations directly from the Q2 reports
http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2007/Q2/C00431445/A_EMPLOYER_C00431445.html
AIR FORCE RESERVE 250.00
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE 160.00
UNITED STATES ARMY 1,051.98
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS 400.00
UNITED STATES NAVY 250.00
US AIR FORCE 1,850.00
US ARMY 4,800.00
US ARMY - CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD 150.00
US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEER 500.00
US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS 2,300.00
US COAST GUARD ACADEMY 250.00
US NAVY 831.30
USAF 2,200.00
USMC 250.00
TOTAL: 13.393.28
See: http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/07/ron_paul_by_the_numbers.html
Good call, I don't know how I missed those yesterday. :(
I'll go back and double check and update the totals accordingly.
Thanks for the correction.
Thanks for the good work, I attempted to do something similar on my blog, but it was not nearly as thorough.
Is it just me or does it seem that the FEC is trying to make it difficult to really analyze the numbers? What I wouldn't give for the actual dataset.
Just an FYI...I've been working on campaigns for a very long time and almost every campaign I've come into contact with counts "anyone who bought a ticket to one of his speeches, bought a bumper sticker, t-shirt, coffee mug etc... as a campaign contributor by having them also give their information and counting the money as campaign donations"
You have to give your name and information whenever you give money to a campaign for ANY REASON, same holds true for in-kind contribution of services. It's not an unusual, it's the NORM.
In fact, except for a very few instances, candidates and campaigns are REQUIRED BY LAW to do so.
anonymous: I think what's throwing me is that it's presented in such a way as to imply that nobody else is doing exactly what Obama is doing. That due to his out of the ordinary actions, he has an extraordinarily high number of contributors that other candidates don't have because they're not doing whatever he's doing.
I would definitely like to know more about the whole issue. But I appreciate your input... it was something that was nagging me, wondering what "standard procedure" was that he was supposedly violating.
Hey largo
About Obama's practices...they're being presented as out of the ordinary most likely by opposition research from rival campaigns. Not only his practice not out of the ordinary, but, as you can see in the link included below, according to the FEC, they are required by law.
If you wonder why other campaigns, then, have not listed those who purchase such items as donors, it is because traditionally selling campaign items like that is a risky proposition. As such, campaigns out-source the task to outside firms. The essentially sell the rights to their campaign gear. They list the bulk profit from that under "Sales" rather than donations, and the contracted company sells the products for profit, rather than to fill campaign coffers. Buying those rights is a gamble, as is not selling them in the first place. The Obama campaign essentially gambled on his potential popularity, and were rewarded handsomely, I'd say.
FEC's citizen guide:
http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/citizens.shtml#contribution
"Yet another way of making a contribution is to purchase a fundraising item or a ticket to a fundraiser. The full purchase price counts as a contribution. If you pay $100 for a ticket to a fundraising event like a dinner, you have made a $100 contribution (even though your meal may have cost the committee $30). Or, if you pay $15 for a T-shirt sold by a campaign, your contribution amounts to $15 (even though the T-shirt may have cost the committee $5)."
Take care
Thanks for the information Michael. That was very informative. :)
I think your method is entirely faulty. Looking at the totals for "no employer was supplied" for Ron Paul and Obama/Clinton/Romney we get the real story. I put this in the format of "no-employer" of "total non-committee contributions" for the Quarter.
To me all you find is that Paul is better at gathering employment data from his contributors.
Only $100 of all of Paul's contributions this quarter came from people who didn't specify an employer. Where as the other candidates i looked at are in the millions for that category. I guarantee a lot of military folks are covered under that label. Most of us in the military do not actively associate our military lives and political lives. It is discouraged and with good reason.
Paul
$100.00 of $2,364,328.41
Obama
$11,645,363.26 of $32,904,746.57
Clinton
$2,125,251.11 of $26,720,346.30
Romney:
$2,740,696.85 of $13,917,800.57
Pete
I just read another comment from the Daily Paul from a reader that tried to wade even further through the FEC filings. I'd like to share his findings below (which still find Ron Paul in the #1 slot):
From http://www.dailypaul.com/node/737#comment-3158
FEC data is a mess
On July 17th, 2007 enoch150 says:
I wanted to see what some of the Democrats were taking in in these categories and found it almost impossible to get any kind of accurate total. The problem is when people listed their employer, "Army", "US Army", "U.S. Army" "United States Army", "Dep. of the Army", "U.S. Army Reserve", etc. are all listed as different categories. There are several dozen categories they could be listed under for military service, and sometimes there are spelling mistakes. It's obvious that the people at Thespinfactor.com left things out, and the attempt by Iraqslogger.com to fix it by adding in the Marines didn't work either since they claim McCain got $1600 from the Marines and Paul got nothing, but I can see Paul got $500 from "USMC" and $1000 from "CITI AND THE USMC RESERVES". I tossed in DHS because of the BP and ICE. I'm sure there are still mistakes, but the this is the best I can do:
. Total Army Navy USAF USMC Vet/ret unsure DOD DHS
Paul 27426, 6975, 7765, 4400, 1500, 5325, 0, 600, 861
Oba 26439, 10553, 1456, 5445, 650, 5180, 305, 1050, 1800
McC 23620, 6925, 6305, 1795, 1600, 800, 0, 1670, 4525
Clint 15360, 2520, 3550, 400, 50, 7200, 150, 1290, 200
Edward 8421, 250, 1319, 644, 250, 839, 0, 4750, 369
Richard 8350, 200, 750, 2400, 0, 2600, 0, 1500, 900
Romney 6606, 2051, 0, 500, 0, 1000, 300, 2550, 205
Giuliani 4670, 1450, 620, 250, 0, 1500, 0, 600, 250
Tancredo 3215, 0, 0, 300, 150, 1000, 1100, 410, 255
Huckabe 2750, 250, 0, 500, 1000, 0, 0, 1000, 0
Hunter 1350, 0, 1000, 100, 0, 0, 0, 0, 250
Biden 800, 0, 500, 0, 0, 300, 0, 0, 0
Brownbac 612, 571, 0, 0, 0, 41, 0, 0, 0
Gravel 150, 0, 0, 150, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
Kucinich 50, 0, 0, 0, 0, 50, 0, 0, 0
TThompson 0
Gilmore 0
Dodd 0
Largo,
Still meaningless. The employer listing is only an indication of how well campaign workers do at getting people to place their employer data down.
Do people not see the logic? Seriously?
Your attempts to make Ron Paul seem like the "military's choice" are way off base. I think you are trying too hard to see silver linings.
pete
Peter, first off you "guarantee" information which you plainly do not know, which is the first indication that you're simply stating your own personal wishes and bias.
Secondly, the fact that so many Military contributors would specifically state their military affiliation, rather than their civilian employment etc, only serves to further illustrate that the Military Personnel wish to clearly illustrate their support for Ron Paul AS MILITARY.
On top of those points, we have the fact that a large portion of the "mainstream" candidates have mostly corporate endorsements etc, large lump donations from people who might not wish to have their company named for a variety of reasons. The majority of Ron Paul's donations are in smaller increments which indicates a ground swell of actual individual supporters.
Your "logic" is interesting, I'll give you that, but given that you make several leaps of wishful thinking and state them as fact, I think it's safe to disregard your claims. :)
"...first off you "guarantee" information which you plainly do not know, which is the first indication that you're simply stating your own personal wishes and bias."
I have no favorite candidate. In fact Ron Paul seems interesting to me. Although you have no reason to believe me, I will tell you I have no inherent bias. Which is why i just picked three front runners for the counter-example.
What I find disturbing in all campaigns is misinformation and misleading interpretations of statistics. I just thought I'd jump in and point out the flaws in your analysis.
"Secondly, the fact that so many Military contributors would specifically state their military affiliation, rather than their civilian employment etc, only serves to further illustrate that the Military Personnel wish to clearly illustrate their support for Ron Paul AS MILITARY."
Largo and his search for the SILVER LINING. About 1/3 of all Obama's contributors didn't mention their employer(1/10 of Clinton and 1/5 of Romney). You really think it's because they were embarrassed to reveal their employer? I think it's much more likely that they just weren't asked to provide that data by whomever was collecting the donation. If even 1% of those not mentioning their employer were from the military, Obama would have an additional 116,000 from military personnel.
"Your "logic" is interesting, I'll give you that, but given that you make several leaps of wishful thinking and state them as fact, I think it's safe to disregard your claims. :)"
The feeling is so mutual. :)
Pete
"On top of those points, we have the fact that a large portion of the "mainstream" candidates have mostly corporate endorsements etc, large lump donations from people who might not wish to have their company named for a variety of reasons. The majority of Ron Paul's donations are in smaller increments which indicates a ground swell of actual individual supporters."
Proof? None?.. that's what I thought. Perhaps Ron Paul gets smaller donations because people don't believe in him as much.
You've more clearly stated your case. :)
I'll admit that these statistics are looking for a silver lining etc. I've known it from the start, given how unscientific they are.
I've seen a few studies that were more in-depth etc, but I think the main point here that shouldn't be overlooked is that while Ron Paul is consistently called a "long shot", he has been beating out John McCain is basically every regard, and is in at least the middle of the pack in many regards, and actually leads the pack in some regards. You don't hear anyone else called "long shot" etc.
I think there's a concerted effort out there to marginalize Ron Paul, and if it takes focusing on small wins here and there to boost morale, then so be it.
Thanks for the critique, I appreciate them, I'm just wary of the same kind of things you are. :)
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