2012 Special Interest PowerScores™

Thanks to the Internet, it's now a well-known fact that money wins elections and the same sources fund both of the biggest political parties in the United States today.

As we approach November, I highly recomend perusing the numbers for yourself on OpenSecrets.org, which offers various splendid breakdowns of who and how much.

We took things a step further by running some analysis of our own. Without further ado, here are Objectable Content's Official 2012 Special Interest PowerScores™!

Power Score™	Industry	Total $ (D)	Rank (D)	Total $ (R)	Rank (R)
3	Retired	$34,522,643	1	$30,817,811	2
5	Securities & Investment	$20,354,223	4	$32,315,629	1
6	Candidate Committees*	$21,355,124	3	$22,700,740	3
10	Lawyers/Law Firms	$28,788,670	2	$6,756,603	8
10	Real Estate	$10,534,319	6	$15,433,911	4
14	Business Services	$9,747,151	7	$6,882,632	7
15	Misc Finance	$6,844,029	10	$10,026,734	5
21	Computers/Internet	$9,043,030	8	$3,715,783	13
21	Health Professionals	$6,299,333	11	$5,581,600	10
24	Misc Business	$6,280,898	12	$3,890,431	12
28	Misc Manufacturing & Distributing	$2,972,711	19	$6,525,101	9
34	Pharmaceuticals/Health Products	$2,725,515	20	$3,702,030	14
35	Retail Sales	$3,175,434	17	$2,803,487	18
36	Casinos/Gambling	$3,706,827	16	$2,763,154	20

All data comes from here and here.

The way this works is by comparing at each party's top 20 funding sources by industry and then combining their respective ranked positions across the board. I put an asterisk next to "Candidate Committees" because, although it is a major source of funding, it isn't really a special interest.

Based on these PowerScores ™, we're predicting that no matter who gets elected this year, you'll see the same pandering toward the usual suspects: old people, Wall Street, big business, construction/housing, lawyers, the bloated health care industry... but keep an eye out for tech on the up and up!

It's interesting to note that the two parties may not be as similar as they used to be -- there were a few sectors that only appear on one party's top 20 contributors list, so if you're looking for some REAL differences between these otherwise mostly policy-homogenous parties, follow these dollars:

Republican Top 20 Only	Total	Rank
Oil & Gas	$7,964,368	6
Insurance	$4,681,181	11
Automotive	$3,425,962	15
General Contractors	$3,303,560	16
Leadership PACs	$2,942,122	17
Commercial Banks	$2,777,533	19

Democrat  Top 20 Only	Total	Rank
TV/Movies/Music	$12,454,427	5
Education	$7,125,520	9
Non-Profit Institutions	$4,564,087	13
Printing & Publishing	$3,833,955	14
Lobbyists	$3,729,644	15
Civil Servants/Public Officials	$3,072,970	18

--Dan Colgate