The Money Trail

David Brooks dissects where each candidates' donations are coming from (and embeds how much Barack is whooping McCain's elderly ass).

The trends are pretty clear: rising economic sectors tend to favor Democrats while declining economic sectors are more likely to favor Republicans. The Democratic Party (not just Obama) has huge fund-raising advantages among people who work in electronics, communications, law and the catchall category of finance, insurance and real estate. Republicans have the advantage in agribusiness, oil and gas and transportation. Which set of sectors do you think are going to grow most quickly in this century’s service economy?

Ever the optimist, I disagree with Brooks' theory that this is all a bait-and-switch tactic by capitalists posing as Democrats, but rather, that maybe the people who are lucky enough to get an education and live comfortably have decided to put political ideals ahead of financial gain. Maybe? As one of the many in the "catchall category", that's my angle and I know many of my friends feel the same (although we're also filed into the "young and idealistic" category, maybe as you cruise up the corporate ladder, people become more cynical... I don't know, yet).