Follow the Money: Dave Albo's Carpetbagging and Corporate Cash

With all the brouhaha about Watergate and "Deep Throat," I'd like to take the oppurtunity to quote Mark Felt's seminal piece of advice to Woodward and Bernstein:

Follow the money.

This quote is just as relevant to Virginia as it is to Washington, DC.  For instance, in digging through the new reports up at the State Board of Elections, we find some rather interesting things about Dave Albo. In the last quarter, he raised $141,125 of which came in contributions of over $100. Only $14,200, or 10% of his money, came from individuals.

Corporate and PAC contributions to Dave Albo outstripped contributions from individuals by 10:1, or about the same ratio as last time. Let's start with the meager portion of contributions that Albo got from individuals (Greg Werkheiser raised $29,515 from individals, crushing Albo by 2:1), shall we?

18% of contributions Albo received from individuals are from out of state. That leaves us with $11,700. Now, $6,625 of that isn't even from anywhere around here, coming in from Richmond and Virginia Beach and places that definitely aren't in Dave Albo's district. That leaves us with just $5,075. 3.5% of his money was donated by Northern Virginians. 3.5%. What exactly is Dave running for?

Not delegate for Northern Virginia, delegate for the 42nd District. Let's take our remaining 12 donors and take out of that everyone in the 42nd District. What are these twelve donor's hometowns?

Alexandria	$375
Annandale	$250
Arlington	$375
Fairfax Station	$1,000
Great Falls	$375
Herndon	$2,000
McLean	$500
Springfield	$200

All but two of those locales, Springfield and Fairfax Station, is rather far from the 42nd. So we have 1 donation of $200 from the Springfield and 1 donation of $1,000 from Fairfax Station. Let's get a better look at where this donor is from. I fed his address into the SBE's Where Do I Vote?

This one donor is from Fairfax County's Precinct 824, or Orange. Those of you familiar with Fairfax politics will note that this precinct is in the 41st District, or the district of Dave Marsden, not the 42nd.

The only 42nd District money given to Dave Albo came from 1 donor, of $1,000.

Quite a progression:
$141,125 total
$14,200 from individuals
$11,700 from Virginians
$5,075 from Northern Virginians
$1,000 from constituents.

.07% of his money is from constituents.

But of course, we've only taken a look at 10% of the money. What about the other 90%? The answer is corporate and PAC donors.

Of the $141,125 raised by Albo, $126,925 comes from companies and PACs. And at first glance, one industry glares at you.

Booze.

$16,000 of Dave Albo's money (fully 11% of his contributions) come from the alcohol industry, which is interesting, because Dave is a DUI lawyer by trade. Now, $1500 of his booze money is from out of state! So is $5,750 from other PAC contributions. $7,250 of his PAC money is not from Virginia.

$16,000. That's $1,800 more than he got from individuals.

Perhaps, since Albo is having a little bit of trouble with his constituents, he gets his money from local corporations and PACs. The bulk of his cash is still from Virginia corps and PACs,  $119,675. Taking out contributions not from Northern Virginia, we get $45,575, less than half our previous total.

We get $4,000 in-district money from--surprise, suprise!--booze PACs!

So, of all $141,125 Dave Albo has raised, $5,000--3.5%--comes from the 42nd District. 80% from beer wholesalers.

Let's hope we get a delegate who is funded by his constituents--Greg Werkheiser has raised twice as much from individuals as Dave Albo, much of it from his district. Much better than that paltry .07% from constituents, outnumbered by what seem to be his real constituents, the booze industry, by 4:1.

Werkheiser for Delegate

Crossposted on my blog, 750 Volts

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