»» Columnists

Campaign Finance Group Spoof: Lord Voldemort Is A More Influential Political Donor Than Harry Potter

by Frances Martel | 3:41 pm, July 20th, 2011

» 5 comments

In a breakthrough study whose results will shock absolutely no one following the Congressional budget wars, campaign finance research group Open Secrets has found that He Who Must Not Be Named is a far more influential donor to candidates in federal elections than his nemesis, Harry Potter. The group found the amount of money “Harry Potter” and “Tom Riddle” have been pouring into campaigns, and found the latter outspending the former on the federal level.

Open Secrets released its results last week in anticipation for the premiere of the eighth Harry Potter film, discovering that five Tom Riddles had donated $11,825 to various federal candidates, compared to the $11,400 donated by two Harry Potters. Fans of the books, of course, will recall that, as a minor, much of Potter’s money was kept in a vault out of reach, while Lord Voldemort had access to the funds of some of the most prestigious magical families of England, possibly contributing to the disparity.

The study also found another interesting tidbit skeptics may attribute to the inability to donate more money: Harry Potter, for all intents and purposes, is a Democrat: “the Potters only gave to Democratic candidates, including Barack Obama and John Kerry, while the majority of the contributions from the Riddles went to Republican candidates.” While the results don’t show which Republicans Voldemort gave to, this does give way to a theory as to who exactly keeps funding Sen. David Vitter‘s reelection bids.

And then there’s this: American wizards are more likely than Muggles to support Republican Congressman Ron Paul. Aside from the bizarre discovery that “self-proclaimed wizards are becoming increasingly involved in politics,” it appears that the two known wizards donating to American political campaigns will only do so for candidates who share a name with Ronald Weasley, Harry’s best friend and (spoiler alert!) future brother-in-law. The other Wizard™-approved candidate? Rep. Ron Klein.

While it is highly unlikely that any part of this research will be used by voters in actually determining candidates, it is a fun thing to explore, though looking at their political contributions severely undermines Potter’s and Voldemort’s combined fundraising abilities– if Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. II were a presidential candidate, it would have already raised more money than Barack Obama.

[h/t, Photo via]

Campaign Finance, Congress, Democrats, fundraising, Harry Potter, Open Secrets, Ron Paul, Ron Weasley, Wizards for Ron Paul

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_M5V6VTQAVLARF7XXO47Z5OCZWM TangledThorns

Heh, Voldemort is a fantasy. Just like Obama, lol!
http://www.constitutionallibertarian.co.cc/ DavidKramer

Another surprising study found that the Barack Obama economy has created more campaign contributors in the first half of 2012 than jobs-

~
Here’s an interesting couple of numbers that emerged during this past
week: According to Jim Messina, his
campaign manager, through the
second quarter of 2011, President Obama now has 552,000 contributors to
his 2012 re-election campaign.

And the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that during the same two quarters, the U.S. economy generated 260,000 jobs.

In other words, Obama attracted twice as many campaign donors as his
economic policies created new jobs. That probably explains a great deal
about yet a third number that received a great deal of attention this
week: Gallup’s finding that a “generic Republican” leads Obama by eight
points in voter preference for 2012.~

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/07/obama-generated-twice-many-campaign-contributors-new-jobs#ixzz1SgHS57kE

I wonder how many of those contributors have Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd for names?
Jerry Baustian

David, have you noticed the clever trick Obama’s Organizing For America came up with, to make it look like most of their donors are small donors?

First, Obama has been traveling all over the country, collecting maximum amounts from fat cats for his own campaign and for the DNC. Then he has all these bundlers, also collecting maximum amounts. But then he sends out emails to millions of supporters, asking for donations of $1 or $2 or $3.

So it looks like he is raising money from a huge number of small donors, because the AVERAGE donation is small — when actually these small donors are being used to cover up the fact that most of the money is coming from tiny numbers of extremely wealthy donors.
http://www.constitutionallibertarian.co.cc/ DavidKramer

Yep, I would like someone instead of asking what is the average of the donations is to ask what is the mean and the mode of the donations. Of course the person you would be asking would go what? Then you could hit them with your point.

Excellent call.
CLTStraightGuy

Just another madlib.