Sunday, January 24, 2010

Per capita money maps...

Thanks to the Texas Tribune for being responsive and recreating their maps to show per capita giving by geography... it is revealing in many ways about how certain candidates fared in certain cities (link). Excerpt follows...

the candidates received what amounts to $1.15 from each Houstonian. They received $1 per-resident from Dallas and $2 per-resident from Austin. But check out Blanco, Encinal and Salado. The candidates collected $57, $38, $25 per person there:

I have to say I am very impressed with the Texas Tribune's ability to just throw out real and substantive information and let readers decide what to make of it... it is amazing how West Texas and the panhandle are not high traffic areas for raising money... this probably just reflects a certain resource allocation versus gain equation...

Getting out to Midland, Lubbock, or other towns in West Texas may bring in some serious cash, but that might be an all day spent on the event... whereas you may raise less in Waco but you can also go to Temple, Salado, and Austin in the same day... or San Antonio, Blanco, and Austin in one day... and then rinse and repeat... time is money and it is just more efficient to raise money up and down I-35 over and over than by flying out to small isolated places over and over.

That is my theory at least about why the rich and small oil towns out there are not sourcing more of the money for politicians.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Hey now, campaign characters. Be nice. I know a lot of you on both sides, so I don't want any overly foul language, personal attacks on anyone other than the candidates themselves, or other party fouls. I will moderate the heck out of you if you start breaking the bounds of civility.