Re:Lamar Smith: Campaign Finance/Money
by tzs on Sunday December 18, 2011 @03:29PM
(#3367397)
I think the point the submitter is trying to make is that Smith has high contributions ($87k) form the tv/movies/music industry (followed by $64k from computers/internet).
At first that looks bad. For comparison, look at Senator Wyden, who has been prominent as a SOPA opponent. He doesn't have any tv/movies/music industry donations in his top 20!
However, if you look deeper, the reason he doesn't have any in his top 20 is that he has such big contributions from others that it pushes the tv/movies/music industry out of the top 20. If you expand the list to show his top 50, you find tv/movies/music at $75k, not far behind the amount they gave to Smith.
At first that looks bad. For comparison, look at Senator Wyden, who has been prominent as a SOPA opponent. He doesn't have any tv/movies/music industry donations in his top 20!
However, if you look deeper, the reason he doesn't have any in his top 20 is that he has such big contributions from others that it pushes the tv/movies/music industry out of the top 20. If you expand the list to show his top 50, you find tv/movies/music at $75k, not far behind the amount they gave to Smith.