I can’t decide whether to be mad, because Hollywood thinks I’m a fucking moron — or just sympathetic because he’s a fucking moron.

Jesus.

No, Hollywood, you didn’t read it carefully. It says that the summary numbers are both prompt and accurate to their date, but that the other numbers are derived numbers that have to be constructed by analysis, which both takes more time and introduces errors.

Since the summary numbers are accounting numbers, they must be assumed accurate to the dollar; at least my protestations that my checking account balanced to within epsilon never cut much slack with the bank.

In any case, sixty-odd million dollars is a helluva margin of error.

As to your other point, you might have a look at this which shows that Bush in fact has 131,854 contributors of less than $200, while Kerry had only 120,091. If, in fact, contributions from small contributors were the ones that didn’t get properly sourced, you’d expect Bush to have a similar number of improperly sourced contributions … not 23 percent versus 6 percent.

As to why there’s a difference between the Kerry source disclosures and the Bush receipts, I suspect it’s because Kerry gets lots of small contribs obtained by volunteers going door to door and neglecting to do the paperwork (even tho they’ve been told to) to get the sourcing info correct. OTOH, I suspect Bush gets more contribs that are sourced properly by folks that are more used to doing these things by the book.

In this case, following the link that says HELP! WHY DON’T THE NUMBERS ADD UP? might have been good:

Summary numbers – specifically “Total Raised and Spent” and “PAC/Individual Split” – are based on summary reports filed by the candidates with the Federal Election Commission. All other numbers in these profiles (”Quality of Disclosure,” “Geography” and “Special Interests”) are derived from detailed FEC reports that itemize all contributions of $200 or more.

In addition, figures listed under the “PAC Contribution Breakdown” often will not add up to match the total PAC Contributions listed under “Source of Funds” because they derive from two different sources. The figures in the “Source of Funds” pie chart are reported by the candidate receiving the money, whereas figures in the “PAC Contribution Breakdown” pie chart are reported by the PACs giving the money. The Federal Election Commission does not reconcile differences between these two reporting sources.

There is also a time lag in posting the information. While summary numbers are reported almost immediately by the FEC — and listed quickly on OpenSecrets — processing and analyzing the detailed records takes much longer. For that reason, summary numbers are usually higher (and more current) than the numbers based on detailed records.

Sometimes you’re just embarrassing.

(PS. You might also wonder why the source 22+ percent of Kerry’s contributions aren’t properly disclosed, but only about 5 percent of Bush’s aren’t. Now, there will always be some error on this as the FEC defines it, but we’re talking about one dollar in four as compared to one dollar in twenty.)

Charlie,

Thanks for the link. There seems to be some kinda flaw in the math. If you check the pull downs, they indicate Bush has spent $208 million and has cash on hand of $111 million. Total: $318 million. I suppose there’s some sort of explanation for this but it’s not immediately clear. When you add Kerry’s figures, they come to $304 million. So, $318 million > $304 million.

Do you ever actually go out and make any attempt to do even a cursory fact check on the stuff that comes out of your keyboard? Even just once in a while, or once in a Blue Moon?

…(of course, Bush has raised so much more that the Demos don’t have much choice do they?). See, it’s easier to get $$$ when you’re serving corporate America.

The links to OpenSecrets.org and PublicIntegrity have been provided here many times. Search here or google. Charlie gave you the totals as of July 31.

Look it all up for yourself. The fatcat millionaires give overwhelmingly to Dems and Dem orgs. Unions, which represent roughly 12% of working Americans give HUGE $$ almost exclusively to Dems and Dem Orgs.

Businesses? Well, for some reason (gee, can’t imagine why but you might wanna go follow some of what Soros and Buffett and Lewis are putting their money into) insurance and investment houses and trial/tort law firms give overwhelmingly to Dems and Dem orgs. And they give big bucks.

If you track down what the broader range of corps give and to whom, you will find that large businesses tend to use their money to influence people already in office and incumbents running for re-election. They are amazingly self-interested and not particularly partisan. If the Dems have control of legislation and regulation, that’s who their money goes to. And the same for Republicans. Businesses (outside of small, local, Chamber of Commerce kinda stuff) don’t have any great tendency to favor one party over the other. Its not in their interests to do so, so they don’t.

Republicans are getting more of their money, and more far more than Dems, from individuals – the Little Man and Woman. You Dems are the party of the fatcats.

So some research, willya. It really does make discussion more fun and interesting if you aren’t splatting out memes that haven’t been true for decades.

http://johnkerrythenewsoldier.blogspot.com/

Kerry’s magnum opus “New Soldier”. This is the book he wrote and want’s everyone to forget. He also refuses to let the publisher reprint it.

Hollywood, do you and the concept of “fact” have so much as a nodding acquaintance with one another?

Turns out that, according to OpenSecrets.org as of 31 July, Kerry had $304,028,394 in contributions.

Bush had $243,656,202.

“Do the math”, right? $304,028,394 > $243,656,202.

Doesn’t it ever worry you that when you link someone else’s story about Kerry (like Kaplan’s), you get ones that have been refuted by Kerry’s campaign itself, and that when you assert something on your own that 30 seconds of googling proves you’re wholly wrong?

BKW ó Back in the early days of the last round of the intifada, BBC got some footage of a terr firing at an Israeli tank. From the front. Israeli tank replied with one round from the 105 main gun. Big Boom. Absent terr.