Data Arcana on Election Donations: "Big Education"

Here's an interesting bunch of factoids:

Nearly four years after academia donated almost $30 million to unseat George W. Bush and Republicans, college professors and others in the education field have contributed more money to federal politics than the oil industry and drugmakers, with a nearly unanimous goal of putting a Democrat in the White House.

So far in the '08 election cycle, people who work for institutions of higher education have given more than $7 million to federal candidates, parties and committees, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Nearly 60 percent of that money has gone to presidential candidates. The industry's favorite, Barack Obama, has raked in nearly $1.5 million in the campaign's first six months, followed by Hillary Clinton with almost $940,000.

Seventy-six percent of the education industry's total federal contributions for '08 has gone to Democrats, on par with the industry's partisanship in the last two election cycles. Perhaps more surprising than the industry’s party split is its sheer size: Education was the eighth-largest industry in terms of all federal campaign contributions in 2004 and the 13th largest in 2006, meaning that in the last two election cycles, college employees contributed more to politicians than the oil and gas industry, which ranked 16th in both cycles. For 2008, CRP ranks the education industry as No. 14, still ahead of big-givers such as oil and gas, general contractors, the computer and Internet industry, electric utilities and the pharmaceutical industry.

So much for "Big Pharma" and "Big Oil." They're just wimpy, wimpy, wimpy, compared to the Leftoid Juggernaut in education.

Now, class, start thinking about the policy implications here. Think that perhaps the Democrat Party's position(s) on "higher education" has something to do with their source-of-funding?

HT: John Lott