Right-Wing Educators

This story from Capital Eye suggests that educators are not necessarily the left-wing lap dogs of popular song and story:

Campaign giving by education interests, an area dominated by contributions from college and university professors, totaled more than $2.4 million to the presidential candidates in the first three quarters of this year. More than half of that money went to President Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Howard Dean, the early Democratic favorite to face Bush next November.

According to opensecrets.org, Dean has pulled in around $718,000 so far this cycle while Bush has raised almost as much: $680,000. The next candidate is John Kerry with $325,000.

Neither Capital Eye nor opensecrets breaks the giving down (other than CE's claim that giving is "dominated" by higher-ed types), so it's hard to know how much of the moolah is coming from college profs and how much from K-12 teachers.

But Bush's strong showing surely reflects not only status as the presumptive GOP nominee but also his willingness to toss everlasting gobstoppers of taxpayer cash at education. As this unintentionally hilarious GOP press release makes clear, Bush isn't just making sure that no children are left behind--he's making sure that educators have plenty of walking-around money too. And that everyone knows about.

Comments

[Tommy_Grand]

So they gave Dems about 3x what the gave to the GOP. What's surprising about that? Real world experience confirms that 15-20% of teachers are Republicans. Maybe 1% are Libertarian. The rest are Democrats, Greens, etc.

[JSM]

Oh, I dunno know. It seems to me that if there was primary opposition to Bush from within the GOP, the candidate(s) would probably receive some contributions as well.

[Jason Ligon]

I'd love to know how much GOP money came from the Academy proper. Maybe .0001% or something. I've met quite a few K-12 teachers with conservative thoughts in their heads, but for a college prof. to think like that would be grounds for dismissal.

[Thorley Winston]

Nick Gillespie wrote:

This story from Capital Eye suggests that educators are not necessarily the left-wing lap dogs of popular song and story:

Actually, what it says (for those who actually follow and read the links) is that 64% of the contributions by individuals and PACS not including unions from the education industry go to Democrats over Republicans.

The contributions from teacher?s unions are even more skewed with 90% and 92% of the contributions by the NEA and AFT respectively favoring Democrats (click on my name for the link).

Someone please tell me how this means that ?educators? are not favoring Democrats overwhelmingly.

But Bush's strong showing surely reflects not only status as the presumptive GOP nominee but also his willingness to toss everlasting gobstoppers of taxpayer cash at education.

?Strong showing?? ROTFLMAO!

If you look at the chart of contributions made to presidential nominees, you?ll see that over 72% of the funding went to Democrats which means then that Bush is actually doing worse than his party overall when it comes to receiving contributions from individuals and PACs (again not including the unions) who are "educators."

Seriously though, was there supposed to be a point to this story or are your journalistic skills so poor that you completely misread the data?

[shane]

"Lap dogs" are far different from "favoring overwhelmingly".

The GOP is merely attempting to capture a portion of the contributions in the political market supplied by public educators.

[Thorley Winston]

"Lap dogs" are far different from "favoring overwhelmingly".

The GOP is merely attempting to capture a portion of the contributions in the political market supplied by public educators.

And the evidence for this is what exactly?

The GOP?s share of contributions from ?educators? is at its 14-year average and Bush?s as a presidential candidate is lower than his party?s average. Moreover when you look at the contributions from the teachers union, they?re even more lopsidedly in favor of Democrats (although the numbers have dropped post-McCain-Feingold).

If there were any evidence to support this theory than the GOP?s share of contributions ought to be increasing rather than remain stagnant and Bush should be receiving a higher percentage of contributions than his party?s average rather than a lower percentage.

The evidence when taken in toto does not support Gillespie's claim. The education industry is just as lopsidedly in favor of Democratic nominees as it has been for the last fourteen years, despite the attempts by some to try and mislead others to the contrary.

[Rick Barton]

From the GOP fact sheet:
As a result of these increases, Title I spending increased more during the first two years of President George W. Bush?s administration than it did during the entire eight years of the Clinton Administration combined.

Disgusting!
Remember when the GOP was on record in favor of abolishing the Dept. of Education? There is no constitutional provision for this spending. We should spread the information of this shame and tell the GOP that if they expect our votes they will have to show some back bone against Bush's big spending agenda in education and other purviews as well.

Don't blame all of the GOP congress though. Some are trying keep spending down. Go to NTU.org to see which ones are worth fighting for.

[Rebecca]

Ultimately it matters little how many teachers donate money to one party or another - they are not the ones that write the textbooks, nor are they the ones that choose the curriculum. That is done by school boards and other people who (I have heard many teachers complain) lack even a basic understanding of classroom realities. The contents of textbooks for elementary and secondary schools are largely determined through negotiation by various pressure groups ("does this story make Native Americans look bad?" "we can't call them Founding Fathers - what about the women involved?" "well, this event doesn't make African Americans look good" "I'm concerned you're not emphasising enough the importance of the banana crop in world trade patterns") - which results in a re-writing of political, social, and cultural history that resembles in no way what actually happened. And in higher education, between 95 and 99 percent of all professors vote Democrat or Libertarian, and what is taught reflects those values (or lack thereof, in some circumstances).

In other words, what you are here discussing is very slight evidence indeed of your claim that educators are "not necessarily" liberally-biased. I should say they may not "necessarily" be biased, but most of them truly are - and do not even recognize it. (How's that for an accusation of "false consciousness"?)