The funding of political campaigns is a strange thing.  At one time, it’s both boring and fascinating.  Look into any candidate or incumbent’s financial benefactors and you’ll go cross-eyed making sense of it.

Take, for instance, South Carolina 5th District Congressman John Spratt.  According to Federal Election Commission records, Spratt received $317,164 in contributions this year through September 30.  Of that, $272,750 or 86% came from political action committees.  But – and this is where I get confused – only 4% of Spratt’s PAC contributions, $11,400,  came from PACs in South Carolina and just three at that.

1. Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough Federal Political Committee – $6,500
2. SCANA Corporation Federal Political Action Committee – $2,500
3. COMPORIUM Political Action Committee – $2,400

Only Comporium, a communications company, are listed as being located in Congressman Spratt’s district.  The Nelson, Mullins, Riley & Scarborough law firm and SCANA are both in Columbia.  The other 96 PAC contributors were from Alabama (2), Arkansas (1), Arizona (1). California (6), Colorado (1), Washington, DC (32), Florida (3), Georgia (2), Illinois (5), Massachusetts (1), Maryland (4), Michigan (2), Minnesota (1), Missouri (1), North Carolina (4), North Dakota (1), New York (1), Ohio (3), Pennsylvania (3), Tennessee (1), Texas (6), Utah (1), and Virginia (12).  Some of these groups gave multiple times.

Forty eight different contributors from the Washington area (D.C, Maryland and Virginia) and only three from South Carolina.

Of the 57 individual contributors, only 5 were from South Carolina, three of which are from Spratt’s district.  Individuals were from seven states and the District of Columbia.  Fourteen from the District, 1 each from Florida and Georgia, 5 from Maryland, 22 from North Carolina, 3 from New York and 6 from Virginia.  Again, most of the contributors – 25 of the 57 or 44% – are from the greater Washington area.  But what of those 22 from North Carolina?

All but one are employed by the same company, Southeast Radiation Oncology Group in Charlotte.  One of those individual contributors is one of the three that lives in Spratt’s district.

So, of $317,164 in contributions, only $14,650 (4.6%) came from South Carolina and just $4,150 (1.3%) from his district.  Half of the funds – $158,900 – came from inside (or on the edge of) the Washington beltway.
None of these contributors did anything wrong. That’s not the point of me wasting your time with this mind-numbing arithmetic recitation. These kind of geographical disparities are not unique to Rep. Spratt or to Democrats and are not new.

It’s just that if politicians are gonna be beholdin’ to anyone, it should be her/his constituency. With these kind of numbers, ya gotta wonder where loyalties lie.

For those of you checking my math – a wise move, indeed – you’ll notice $4,149 not accounted for.  That’s because $46 came from the Democratic Party Congressional Campaign Committee for “in-kind fundraising services” and $4,103 from unspecified “other.”