Not so fast, bucko. Something doesn't up here.

1. Those charts conspicuously omit the total number of donors, and the number of donors of $200 or less. [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=119730|That was what this was all about, remember?]

2. The Republican party only gets one line, but the Democrat party gets broken up into multiple lines. Which renders the percentages utterly meaningless, because...

3. No breakdown of the actual amounts of money in each category. [link|http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/donordemographics.asp?cycle=2002|Oh wait. Here it is. But still no $200 or less!]

It's called "selective use of statistics" and it's a dirty trick. Not that I'm shocked or anything.

Also, why can't I get a chart for $2000 or more? I choose the right pulldown item, but it just gives me the $200 chart.

No, this isn't likely to stand up to much scrutiny.
By the way, I don't blame opennsecrets.org. They're reasonably [link|http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/donordemographics.asp?cycle=2002|up front about what they're omitting]. Excerpt:

The numbers on this page are based on contributions from individuals giving $200 or more. All donations took place during the 2001-2002 election cycle and were released by the Federal Election Commission on Monday, June 09, 2003. Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.

I say:

They just provide the statistics. You play the games with them.

Oh and another excerpt:

Only a tiny fraction of Americans actually give campaign contributions to political candidates, parties or PACs. The ones who give contributions large enough to be itemized (over $200) is even smaller.

I say:

Of course a subset will be smaller than its containing set. But it would be useful to know how much smaller. Too bad Open Secrets doesn't offer that data. Or maybe it's buried on the site somewhere. Scavenger hunt, anyone?

Until then, the only info we seem to have is what [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=1197|I've been able to find]. Incomplete and anecdotal, yes. But it's better than nothing, so it'll have to do for now.

first off, you qualified it to small donors to George W. Bush. I'm not saying ol' Georgie isn't taking in globs of money, he's far and away the leader in the pack with $84 million.

Hell, ol' Dean is only second at $25 million.

But like I said, you qualified it to small donors. FEC documentation only requires that people be listed if they give $200 or more. However, FEC documentation DOES require that the total amount from $200 donors or less be given.

In George's case - [link|http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/donordems.asp|11%] of his funding (individual) came from donors who gave $200 or less.

So, taking our [link|http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/summary.asp?ID=N00008072|$84 million], multiplying it by 11% give us roughly $9,240,000.

Dean on the other hand has raised [link|http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/summary.asp?ID=N00025663|$25 million] and [link|http://www.opensecrets.org/presidential/donordems.asp|56%] came from $200 or less contributions.

$25 million * 56% give us $14,000,000.

Which, as you pointed out, tell us nothing about the number of donors.

We do know, however, that the minimum number of donors for Dean would be if each doner gave the max amount - $200. ($14,000,000 / $200 = 70,000).

And we do know, however, that maximum amount of donors for Bush would be if each donor gave $0.01. (One cent). ($9,240,000 / $0.01 = 924,000,000)

So obviously, Bush has 13200 times (924000000/70000) more donors than Dean.

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