Drug Money: Pharma Bets On Obama, So Far
7 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // February 7th, 2008 // 7:37 am
As the chart indicates, drugmakers have been betting on Barack Obama, who received $154,710 in donations through December, almost entirely from individual employees and family members, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which makes a point of tracking such things. He edged out Hillary Clinton, who raked in $140,544, including $6,000 from PACs, despite her regular promises to ‘take on’ drugmakers. Across the aisle, Mitt Romney collected $103,825, reflecting his pro-business stance and high profile in Boston’s biotech community. Not surprisingly, John McCain received just $39,797, which may seem like to some people, given his support for cheap imports. And Mike Huckabee, well, he got pocket change - $1,610, maybe because he was seen as long shot?
Linda in New York
Perhaps you could distinguish the contributions from INDIVIDUALS in the pharmaceutical industry vs. from corporations? Ambiguous, misleading article otherwise.
Matt
Notice how Big Pharma has contributed to each campaign. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain regardless of who wins…
Ed Silverman
Hi Linda,
Good question. And I’ve updated the item to reflect that these contributions are from individuals. Just so you know, the chart I received from the CRP did break down those individual contributions by Democrat and Republican. Sorry for the confusion. There was never any attempt to mislead.
ed at Pharmalot
Jack2
I’m surprised that Clinton got the second most.
Mark
I can’t believe so many in the pharma industry would support any kind of liberal media. I guess they don’t like there jobs.
Justice in Michigan
In general, pharma money has followed where the power seems to be going, regardless of ideology. Gingrich tried to keep that from happening for a while, but with only moderate success.
Tim Wu’s technology policy wish-list: how does Obama measure up? « Aaron Shaw’s weblog
[...] The bottom line from both of these cherry-picked excepts is easy to see. I have a hard time figuring out if Obama’s policy advisors (and Larry Lessig may well be one of them) are merely hedging in order to comfort anxious industry lobbyists or quietly signaling that they will only go so far in pushing the tech policy agenda in a progressive direction. In this regard, the campaign may merely be responding to the subtle effects of pressure and influence wielded by stakeholders such as the pharmaceutical industry. [...]