Someone linked this on my friend’s Facebook wall:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638
Can this be true? WTF is the UofC doing channeling money to ANY politician? I thought Universities were supposed to be about finding and spreading knowledge, not running the country according to their ideology. Very disturbing.
So what is going on here?
That number includes donations from individuals affiliated with UofC. It says so in bold print at the top of the page, right after it says in red, bold, italic letters that “the organizations themselves did not donate.”
And if you look at John McCain’s top contributors, we see the US Government at number 6 and the US Army at number 12.
The disparity between the amounts listed is attributable to McCain accepting public financing of his campaign (the $3 that is collected from people who tick the box at the top of their tax return) as opposed to Obama, who opted not to take those funds so he could raise cash on his own.
ETA: Lord Feldon may wished to have quoted the next few words as well: “… the money came from the organization’s PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals’ immediate families.”
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses/welcome.html
The UC family includes more than 220,000 students, more than 170,000 faculty and staff, 37,000 retirees and more than 1.5 million living alumni.
So since people affiliated with UC only raised about 1.6 million, that isn’t a huge number considering all the professors and students who likely donated $25 or more to the campaign.