In today’s Bucks County Courier Times, reporter Brian Scheid takes a look at the composition of the nearly $1.2 million in funding that Patrick Murphy has raised to date for the 2008 campaign (which, despite Mikey’s absence at the moment – no doubt trying to ratchet up whatever drama he can generate for his return on behalf of the knuckle-dragging faithful – is very much underway).Yes, it is symptomatic of the crassness of our politics that this is a legitimate issue. But until the vast majority of this country gets serious about campaign finance reform, this is the status quo.
What Scheid found out (here) was that about $670,000 of the money came from individuals. Nearly $280,000 came from PA residents, meaning that slightly over half of the individual donations came from outside of PA, in a fairly diverse spread across the east coast and California (and in diverse amounts as well).
The rest of the money came from political action committees, which included labor and defense interests, as well as about $30,000 from PACs of U.S. House members (including $5K from House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer), as well as $44,000 from other Democratic candidates.
I know $1.2 mil is a lot of dough for a political campaign, but as Scheid notes, Mikey Fitzpatrick raised $1.5 million total for his own campaign last year, and Patrick will need every bit of what he has and more to keep his seat.
This is the sort of unglamorous reporting that ends up being very important, and Scheid did a good job here – kudos.
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