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Opinion: The John McCain and Barack Obama money flow

By Scott Martelle
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We admit we like Internet gadgets as much as -- OK, maybe more than -- the average blogger. And we have to say, this tool from the folks at Open Secrets is fun to play with. You click on a candidate and get a little network of where the top corporate-related donors come from (the data seem to be through March).

Interestingly, Goldman Sachs shows up among the top sources for John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Citigroup was among the top sources for McCain and Clinton. Overall, people associated with the securities industry gave Clinton $6.3 million compared to $6 million for Obama and only $2.6 million for McCain.

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Retirees? They’re siding with youth, donating $7 million to Obama, $5.9 million to Clinton and $5.8 million to McCain. Of course, those numbers will be skewed because of the inordinately high fund-raising among the Democrats, so it will be interesting to watch the numbers as the campaign progresses with just two candidates. And to see how much hay the McCain campaign makes out of Obama’s big donor groups.

-- Scott Martelle

Top of the Ticket
Scott Martelle

Scott Martelle is a former Times staff writer and member of the editorial board. He also is the author of several nonfiction books on such disparate subjects as the Ludlow Massacre and 1913-14 Colorado coalfield war, the history of Detroit, and William Walker, the pre-Civil War American adventurer who for a brief time made himself president of Nicaragua.

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