Portal Talk:Front groups

Politicized Industries

Both sides of the aisle have their money sources. The easy way to see this is OpenSecrets.org's Industries feature.

Gives to Republicans:

Industry	Historically	2010	2008	Other
Oil and Gas	24%D/75%R	29%D/71%R	23%D/77%R
Tobacco	26%D/74%R	40%D/58%R	38%D/62%R
Insurance	37%D/63%R	50%D/49%R	44%D/55%R	Jumped from yearly 35%D/65%R settings from 1996-2006 in 2008
Pharmaceuticals	38%D/62%R	55%D/44%R	50%D/49%R	Jumped from yearly 35%D/65%R settings from 1996-2006 in 2008
Commercial Banks	41%D/59%R	44%D/55%R	48%D/52%R
Health Professionals	43%D/56%R	50%D/48%R	52%D/47%R	Jumped from yearly 40%D/60%R settings from 1996-2006 in 2008
Telephone Utilities	44%D/55%R	53%D/47%R	49%D/51%R	Jumped from yearly 40%/60% settings from 1998-2006 in 2008

Gives to Democrats:

Industry	Historically	2010	2008	Other
Education	73%D/26%R	75%D/23%R	82%D/18%R
Lawyers/Law Firms	73%D/26%R	78%D/21%R	76%D/23%R
TV/Movies/Music	70%D/29%R	73%D/27%R	78%D/22%R
Hedge Funds	64%D/35%R	55%D/44%R	65%D/35%R
Casinos/Gambling	56%D/44%R	68%D/31%R	64%/36%
Computers/Internet	55%D/44%R	66%D/34%R	66%D/33%R
Lobbyists	54%D/46%R	66%D/33%R	57%D/43%R	About 50%D/50%R split 1996-2004, sided Rep. in 2006 before 2008

--Jzyehoshua 06:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

As such, Republican funding sources have primarily been Oil/Gas, Tobacco, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, Commercial Banks, and Telephone Utilities, in that order.

Meanwhile, Democrat funding sources have primarily been Education, Lawyers/Law Firms, TV/Movies/Music, Hedge Funds, Casinos/Gambling, Computers/Internet, and Lobbyists, in that order.

Republicans are typically your big business, tobacco, oil and gas guys. They control big business. Other areas that were typically Republican like health care, insurance, and banking are now about evenly split.

Democrats are typically your liberal arts guys. They control education/science, entertainment/media, and lawyers.

Expect both sides to demonize the other side's power structures.

These results are also seen from the excellent 2005 study done by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, Beyond Red vs. Blue, which organized Americans into 9 political typologies. It's a very fun and interesting, yet informational study.

A number of normally Republican strongholds began going noticeably Democrat recently, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, and Health Professionals - all of which are of course associated with health care. While some of this is doubtless due to the increased number of Democrats in Congress, it still looks suspicious. After all, why go so relentlessly for health care reform when it has little impact on the economy or jobs, which is what Americans wanted government to work on? It's possible Republicans saw it as an attack on their primary funding sources, and THAT'S why they kept screaming about a government takeover...

Oh, and also, I didn't bother mentioning the Gun Rights/Gun Control and Pro-Life/Pro-Choice industries, since I didn't expect anyone'd be particularly surprised by the results, but those are also funding sources for both sides. Feel free to look those up off the Industries page as well, however. --Jzyehoshua 06:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)