Much has been made in recent days about the money flowing (or not) into the mayor’s race and who’s giving it (or not). We’ve seen a stunning drop-off in contributions and endorsements for Jefferson Smith. And we’ve also seen Charlie Hales’ decision to conveniently sidestep a promise to limit campaign contributions.
Less mentioned—unless it’s to criticize candidates for taking out-of-state contributions—is where the money’s coming from. Paul Cone, a Smith volunteer whose city job has him building maps for the transportation bureau, took a crack at answering that question. He hopped onto the secretary of state’s campaign finance website, downloaded spreadsheets of the two campaigns’ reports as of October 13, and used a free Google tool to plot each and every gift large enough to come attached with an address.
The numbers don’t reflect some of the recent tectonic shifts, which is one big caveat. Nor does the Google toolbox support making “heat maps” that would also show the size of each contribution. But at first blush, it looks like Smith’s contributors are a bit more diffuse than Hales’, who seem to be more concentrated in the Pearl, the West Hills, and Irvington.
Says Cone: “I just wanted to do a comparison so we could see which neighborhoods are putting their money where there mouths are.”
(And, yes, if you zoom out far enough, you can also see all those non-Oregon contributions Smith has racked up, too.) Hit the jump to see embedded versions of the maps, or click on the links to open up in Google, where you can run some extra filters on ’em.
Hales’ contributions:
Smith’s contributions:
These would actually be interesting or useful at all if Smith weren’t also taking a huge swath of contributions from out-of-state, while Charlie is not.
OHHHHH I CAN ZOOM OUT
Drunk, now that you’ve discovered you can zoom out you can see that Charlie got a lot of his money from out of state, too. In fact, he got MORE in large contributions from out of state than Smith — if you filter by transactions of $10K or more you can see that Hales got $70K from out of state while Smith got only $20K. I haven’t done the totals for all out of state contributions yet, but it’s pretty easy to do if you look at the “list of transactions” tab you’ll see when you open the maps in a separate window.
Also one other thing — you can click on the points to get transaction details.
Paul, I don’t know why I’m bothering, since you’ve become well-known as one of the most annoying Smith hacks on the internets, but here goes:
Hales took out-of-state money, as did Smith, before they made their campaign finance pledges, at which time Hales prohibited out-of-state donors and Smith did not.
The fact that Smith supporters continue to decry Hales as some big-money machine candidate while Smith collects large checks in LA, New York, DC, etc. is just more in a “pattern of behavior,” as the Oregonian would say.
And since that time, Hales has seen fit to once again change his position on campaign donations and reneged on his donation limit promise. No need to go out of state anymore if you can get it bundled all up locally.
Drunk, personal attacks on other commenters who are just making statements of fact don’t really help to make your argument. Yup, I’m a Smith supporter, but the mapping work was completely objective. And by the way, I started out as a Hales supporter (met him personally before he started the race) but changed my mind after I learned more about his positions and then, where his money was coming from.
I’m not defending Hales’ “adjustment.” It’s slimy and smacks of dishonesty.
But I still think that even the richest of local developers have a better reason to donate to a Portland mayoral race than people in DC, NY, LA.
> I still think that even the richest of local developers have a better reason to donate to a Portland mayoral race than people in DC, NY, LA.
Jefferson started a nonprofit with affiliated headquarters in four states, and went to school back east. So the fact that he has a handful of friends across the country willing to support him doesn’t strike me as a bad thing. They have much less to gain, financially, from Jefferson than the developers, coal barge makers, and engineering firms do if Charlie is elected.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Hey Denis, if I put together a Google map of all the places where Smith and Hales punched and/or shoved people, would you run that as a story?
Paul: You love Smith. We all know this. But nothing is going to change the fact that Smith is aggressive and violent. I would absolutely rather have someone who gets his money from the Pearl, the West Hills, and Irvington versus someone who punched a woman in the face and sent her to the hospital, punched a guy at a pick-up basketball game, and got kicked out of a soccer league (for a whole season, mind you, not just a game) for shoving another player.
I honestly ask this question… how can you support someone with such a clear history of violence (including against women, no less!)? Not to mention all of the reckless driving, which in and of itself is extremely aggressive behavior? I really don’t get it.
I am a woman, and old enough to be Smith’s mother, although I am not related to him or his family in any way.
I am acquainted with him as well as his father, stepmother, and wife.
I don’t consider a drunken fraternity party incident where he wasn’t the aggressor to be the same as “violence against women.” I got decked by a drunk guy once when I was in college too. I was not entirely sober myself and I do not feel that that incident held any cosmic meaning about the character of the drunk guy who decked me.
I support Jefferson Smith because I believe that he would be a better Mayor than Charlie Hales, and because I also believe him to be a better human being than Charlie Hales.
“Downtown Charlie Brown”. They like me, they really like me!
A bit more diffuse? I suppose so, in the same way that the AIDS outbreak has been “a bit more diffuse” than for ebola.
Drunk, when you make national stories out of a talk you gave at the TedX forum and a legislative Rickroll prank, you make friends around the nation. Those donors have no interest in seeing their own agenda served; they know or have seen Jefferson in action and like what they see, want that kind of leadership in general for America. The coal companies, developers and trade unions have no such altruistic motivation for their donations. That’s the pertinent difference.
Conservative dude shows up to a liberal party looking for an argument. Way to assert yourself!
What coal companies have given to Hales? Name one.
Drunk & Write, http://www.blueoregon.com/2012/10/coal-exp….
Coal companies haven’t given to Charlie directly. Portland companies who would be making the barges and rail cars to transport coal through Portland are big funders. In this way, this is “coal money” in a practical sense because their contribution would bring coal through our city. Do you see the connection?
“Hales came out against coal in a similar fashion and even said he’d go farther than a city ban and lobby our Congressional delegation, but gave a clue about what I believe is indicative of his overall strategy: “The federal government governs our railroads. They have the ultimate power to make this happen or not.” Leaving aside for a moment that the issue of environmental regulation and the role of community input in public health decisions is vastly more complicated and legally unsettled than Hales asserts – even when railroads are involved – there’s another problem with Hales’ position on coal: he’s playing both sides.
Hales not only has taken $10,000 from interests who stand to gain the most if coal is shipped through our region, but those same people – specifically, Bill Furman of Greenbrier Companies and Frank Foti of Vigor Industrial – are in Hales’ inner circle and are currently raising gobs of cash for Hales as his “deputy prospects” (whatever that means). In other words, the people who are competing for the contracts to build the rail cars and barges to move coal through our region are Charlie’s biggest supporters. So, what can you say about it other than it seems pretty obvious that Hales is committed to the interests of those who stand to benefit most from coal? This reeks of the same cynical politics of trading favors and taking dives that we’ve become accustomed to at all levels of government. You can almost see Hales giving the camera the frustrated look as he tells us that he’d love to do something, but that gosh-darn Federal Government just won’t let us prevent ourselves from being poisoned. Give back the dirty coal money if you want anyone to treat your statements as remotely credible, Charlie.”
Articles linked in original article: http://www.blueoregon.com/2012/10/coal-exp…
Oh, I get it. Smith supporters accuse Charlie Hales of taking “dirty coal money” and then say, oh, well, it’s not EXACTLY coal money….
Also, Greenbriar et al make a whole lot of things. That move lots of things. Coal might or might not be one of those things. You sound irrational.