For the record, there is a PDF available of Sean Mahoney’s individual donors at the FEC but it is not as easy to access nor review on line as any of the other FEC data for New Hampshire candidates. Perhaps I should be clearer. Out of the 19 candidates reporting receipts to the FEC in all the federal level races for New Hampshire only Wesley Michael Sonner Jr, Timothy Vanblommesteyn (Both in CD-2) and Sean Mahoney do not have their detailed data available on the front end FEC candidate list page for each respective race. I know what you are thinking. Who the hell is Timothy Vanblommesteyn and why are he and Sean Mahoney being dissed by the FEC.
All the other candidates’ details were easily accessible in HTML lists you can export to Excel, (example), filter and sort in seconds or even compare side by side on line. Why not Sean’s? I mean what the heck? Someone over there needs to pick up the phone and do some legwork to fix this FEC thing.
Despite that it was incorrect of me to suggest that there was no detailed filing to look at. It is there, and we can look at it, it’s just several scrolls and clicks further away from all the other ones. My bad. I didn’t realize Sean was as special as Timothy Vanblommesteyn. I stand corrected.
Also, for the record, commenter(s) to the first blog took me to the wood shed for my oversight (which is fine), but when I asked if someone could just send me an excel copy of this oh-so accessible "hey dumb ass it’s right there" donor list, I was told that I should do my own damn digging. The exact quote is…
""Don’t throw out false claims and then demand others do your leg work for you.""
They then proceed to basically misquote me and…how do I phrase this…throw out a false claim.
""If you knew anything about politics you would know there is no such thing as anonymous donations to congressional candidates.""
ooooh…
So do Mahoney supporters believe a working knowledge of campaign finance and the FEC web site are a prerequisite to “knowing anything about politics?” I’m not sure what part of the constitution that’s in. Maybe it’s hiding inside one of those shadows or penumbras, you know like the one he found in my original post that invents “anonymous donors” I never mentioned.
The actual quote is "unknown number of individual donors." What that means is that there are donors, we just didn’t know how many there were because the Mahoney donor list was not where everyone else’s was. I make no mention of anonymity; something a little leg work on their part might have revealed, I merely state that we cannot demonstrate who besides Mr. Mahoney is donating to Sean Mahoney.
Whether or not that has any bearing on “knowing anything about politics” I shall leave that to my readers who are free to make up their own minds. For my part, I do know you cannot donate anonymously and I can’t wait for Sean’s next glossy mailer in which he invokes the well-worn Founders maxim that everyone be able to read or understand the goat-innards of modern campaign finance before they are entitled to their first amendment right to free speech and the redress of grievances regarding those in political office or who aspire to it.
While we wait for that little ray of sunshine, let’s finally review the PDF data that is there.
I took the 76 page PDF report when I located it, and not only did the leg work I did the extra leg work their unique filing situation required. So the number of the donors has been identified. Mr. Mahoney has approximately 130 donors on this report making about 150 donations plus or minus a few.
His donors do not donate in denominations below $250 with but two visible exceptions; one for $100 by a donor who also gave 2400.00 and the other is for $150 given by GOP county committee member Carolyn Geiler. Everything else is of the 250, 500, 1000, and 2400 variety or some number in between.
No small dollar donations were evident–you know the 20, 35, and 50 dollar variety that the dirty little commoners like to give. (For the record only Guinta and CSP have donors of this sort in any abundance on report. Ashooh has one $50 spot from a guy in Virginia, and nothing else under $250 in this public record. Bestani has four at $100, everything else is above that. Guinta’s report has 72 donors at 100 or less.)
I won’t assume that Mahoney, Ashooh and Bestani don’t have small dollar grass roots donors just that there are none in evidence given what I have at hand. I happen to think that matters when talking grass roots so if anyone has other data feel free to share it. Even the twisted panty, do your own leg work crowd is invited to send data if they can get over themselves long enough to swing it. Worst case we report it as sent without commentary–as boring at that might be.
Only about 32% of the donations to Mr. Mahoney are from out of state addresses accounting for about 44% of the total "individual donations" which is a plus. We like to see more in state money that out. Everyone else is near or within the 45-55 split for out of state addresses except Guinta. Over 85% of the donors on his FEC file report living in the state.
Sean is currently about 83% self-funded. The only other federal candidate besides Mr. Vanblommesteyn who comes close in Bill Binnie who should just give every voter 100k and get it over with.
That’s about it. I did not waste time slogging over particular names, though a casual review shows plenty of professionals and business owners—people in his peer group—which seems only natural. But it would be a marked improvement for his “grass roots” cred to see more small donations from less well-heeled advocates. Take that to mean whatever you like. Barring any further invitation, I’m not going to spend any more time on this report unless my ignorance about FEC reports inspires further retribution from my detractors.
