February 14, 2008 - 9:33am
Allen v. Collins: Interesting thing about interest.
By Wally Edge
Tags: Susan Collins, Tom Allen
I apologize to all of you who let me know that you have no interest in campaign finance reports.
Anyway, speaking of “interest”, if you look at item 15 on the FEC (Federal Election Commission) reports on the detailed summary page of receipts, you will find the amount of interest earned from the campaign cash account.
According the 2007 year end report, Congressman Allen’s campaign reported $20,829 in interest -- of which $18,376 was from the 4th quarter. That does raise a question– did they just realize in the 4th quarter that they could get interest from their bank? To put it in perspective that twenty grand will get you a little less than a days worth of television air time.
Senator Collins, who --when it comes to spending campaign money---wouldn’t pass a pay phone without making sure there were no dimes left behind, reported a whopping $144,872 in interest with $39,528 from the 4th quarter. Essentially, the Collins campaign has earned a free week of television air time just from the interest on the campaign cash.
For the record, Collins banks with Bangor Savings Bank, while the Allen campaign parks its cash at Bank of America.
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Details, details
Welcome to a big-time campaign, Tom! Well, he never was a detail guy.
Good for Susan Collins for using a Maine-based bank that does good things for the state. The Bangor Savings Bank Foundation ploughs a lot of money back into Maine-based charities and programs.
Campaign Contributions - Who Cares!
No interest in campaign financing? After downloading the files from the Federal Election Commission and sorting through a Excel spreadsheet, I found some interesting results. Lets see, in 2007 both candidates received over 950K from out of state contributors, less than 500K from in state.
Collins received over 71K from DC - most of them lobbyists. 115K from NY - including contributions from Hearst Publishing, and the CEO of Time Warner. 98K from VA - again mostly lobbyists who represent defense contractors and an ocassional contribution from CEOs of the nation's largest defense contractors. (Being chairperson of the Homeland Security committee does have its benefits. No wonder she doesn't want to put a timetable on Iraq.)
58K from alot of law firms down in one of the poorest states in the union, Mississippi.
Contributor's from George Bush's home state of Texas chipped in another 68K. 62K from more lobbyists in Maryland.
One of the more curious entries were from CEOs of concrete block companies across the nation. Things that make you go 'Hmmm'.
For Congress Allen, California was the place to be 290K, NY - 231K, MA - 139K. Almost all were from lawyers, professors, a few lobbying firms and individuals.
Another curious item was Allen received one contribution from NV of $1,000, Collins received 35 contributions of over 68K. Who said the Republicans are conservative with money.
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