The Democrats love to claim they're the party of the common man, the party of the young and the hip, and the party that disdains special interests. It won't surprise you that none of this is true.For starters, the Democrats are the party of lawyers. Not only were lawyers their largest contributors in 2010, giving 81% of their donations to Democrats, but Democratic ranks are crawling with lawyers. In the last Senate, 35 of the 54 lawyers in the Senate were Democrats. In the last House, 106 of the 162 lawyers were Democrats.
The Democrats also like to nominate lawyers. The Obamas are both lawyers, as were the Clintons. In fact, every Democratic Presidential nominee since 1984 was a lawyer (Gore didn’t graduate but did go to law school), as was every VP nominee since 1976 except Lloyd Benson. By comparison, the last Republican President/nominee who was a lawyer was Gerald Ford.
Republicans also send more varied candidates to Washington. Republican leadership ranks have in the past included: businessmen, an exterminator, economists, a plastic manufacturer and even a heart surgeon. Of the 85 Republican freshmen in the Congress, half have never served in government, there are six doctors, three car dealers, two funeral directors, an airline pilot and a pizza restaurant owner.
The source of funding between the parties is sharply different as well. Besides lawyers, the Democrats drew the majority of their money from Wall Street, the real estate industry, public sector unions, lobbyists, Hollywood and Big Pharma. Retired people and doctors led the way with the Republicans. Here are the percentages of how the top groups spent their money, note which party got the lion’s share of their giving:
| Percent Given to Democrats | Percent Given to Republicans | |
| Lawyers | 81% | 19% | Wall Street | 58% | 42% |
| Real Estate | 61% | 39% | Public Sector Unions | 92% | 8% |
| Lobbyists | 68% | 32% | Hollywood | 70% | 30% | Big Pharma | 58% | 42% |
So much for claims that the Republicans are in thrall to lobbyists and special interests.
The Democrats in Congress are significantly older than the Republicans as well. The average age for House Republicans is 54.9 years, compared to 60.2 years for the Democrats. In the Senate, these numbers are 61.4 years for Republicans and 63.1 for Democrats -- and that’s after the death of 137 year old Teddy Kennedy and 472 year old Robert Byrd.
Moreover, when you look at the Democratic leadership in the House you find the following ages: 70, 71 and 70, compared to the Republican leadership: 61, 47, 45. The Democratic committee chairmen are even older: 70, 79, 65, 71, 70, 69, and 81, for an average age of 72.1 years. Most of these Democrats were born 34 years before the average American -- the median age of Americans is 36.8. World War II was just starting when they first darkened the planet.
So much for the Democrats’ claims to being the party of the young or representing new and youthful ideas.
To sum all of this up, the Republicans fit fairly closely with average Americans, and they are much more likely to draw their campaign money from non-lobbyists sources. The Democrats are a party of senile lawyers, bought and paid for by the Washington Lobbying Complex. And that explains why the last Congress was so ready to try to repeat the FDR years and to hand out money to special interests, and why the Democrats didn't learn anything from the election: you can't teach an old lawyer. . . anything.
Wonderful stats to have, Andrew - nice to have in one's quiver, so to speak. Thanks for sharing them. I can't comment without mentioning that teachers and journalists represent special interests where membership is overwhelmingly slanted towards the Democrat Socialist Party. Without even considering their campaign contribution dollars, these professions are positioned to propagandize for their party in an extremely unfair and harmful way.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct that this comes as no surprise, but here's the rub--even though it's all as you say and your stats back it up, the Democrats are STILL thought of as the party of the "common man" and the Republicans as the party of the rich. And as Limbaugh points out time after time, black Americans still vote 90% for Democrats even though they are the party of slavery, Jim Crow, destructive welfare policies and politicians like Robert "KKK" Byrd (not to mention the home of political correctness).
ReplyDeleteThe new media, of which blogs like Commentarama is a part, is making inroads. Grass roots movements like the Tea Party have made great strides and a fundamental shift in thinking seems to have started, but we as a nation haven't reached the turning point yet.
The canard that democrats are the party of the little man is laughable, with just a moments investigation. They thrive on ignorance to foist their elitist horse squeeze on the public. Another salient point to your article, the age discrepancy, this further exposes the prevalence of ‘60s radicalism, it’s their generation.
ReplyDeleteApologies about the Gooey Cake recipe. With my house being destroyed (a bit over dramatic, but) my mom’s baked goodies went to one of my brothers houses…drat! However I did ask, and to my mother, and to my horror, she said it is a Paula Deen recipe, and can be had on the internet. And here I thought my mom had invented this delight in her baking brilliance, oh well…another illusion shattered.
As an aside, I still have three bathrooms that need to be fully painted, two vanities finished, the ceiling in my kitchen finally painted…what a pain in the a$$!
On the bright side, in a few hours there will be substantially fewer lawyers and geriatrics in Congress.
ReplyDeleteBreaking News: It has just been confirmed that Robert Gibbs is resigning as Press Secretary.
ReplyDelete"He wants to spend more time with his family..." (okay I made that up, but it's pretty much the truth)
Definitely interesting information, Andrew. And so telling. But like USArtguy pointed out, it's the perceptions that matter. How do we go about changing that, short of publishing your article on the front page of every newspaper in the country? ;)
ReplyDeleteJed, You're welcome! It is handy to have stats like this somewhere easy to find, so I like doing articles like this.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about teachers and journalists. Opensecrets.org actually tracks the top 50 special interests in terms of giving, but for the purposes of this article, I figured the top 5 or so where enough.
P.S. Jed, your book review will be published today at 4:00 pm. :-)
ReplyDeleteUSArtguy, Very true. The Democrats have been very good at pretending to be one thing while actually being another. But I'll tell you in all honesty that I think that's ending. I think people are catching on.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, the MSM, which was nothing more than a public relations arm of the Democratic Party has lost it's monopoly. As you note, the new media is much more likely to expose the truth. And this has been particularly effective in getting conservatives to stop parroting the myths and to start openly speaking the reality -- the days of being called crazy for speaking the inconvenient truth are over. I think that's why things like claims of racism no longer resonate -- because conservatives (and a great many independents) now know the truth and no longer simply accept what they hear when the Democrats and their fellow travelers in the MSM say it.
Secondly, the left is no longer satisfied. You see this everywhere, with self-described progressives openly condemning the Democrats for their connections to Wall Street and big business. And these progressives have captured places like MSNBC. So suddenly, when Pelosi says, "we don't cater to special interests," you have half the population turn to guys like Rush and Commentarama to find out the truth, and another quarter turn to MSNBC. And that's eroding their ability to pretend to be one thing and yet actually be something completely different.
Stan, Wow, that sounds like very extensive damage!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about the recipe too. Still, if it's a good recipe, just enjoy it.
You're right about the Democrats -- even a few second's investigation tells you that the image is a lie. But until recently, they've had the power of the MSM pushing this myth. And too many people simply accepted what the MSM said without ever thinking about it. Moreover, these people would attack anyone who dared to tell them that the MSM was wrong. But that's changing now.
And you're right about the age being important. The Democrats are all from that 1960s generation, whereas the Republicans are much more likely to be from the Reagan generation. And that is a significant difference!
T_Rav, That's true! And good riddance. Still, as the figures above show (which are for the new Congress), they've just replaced Geriatrics with other Geriatrics. They've swapped out early 1960s radicals for late 1960s radicals.
ReplyDeleteApparently, they've also lost almost their entire "youth movement" in the last election. That's actually very bad for them because it hurts their future chances a good deal.
Bev, I'd seen rumors about that for a week or so, and I'm glad he's going. I don't think I've ever despised a press secretary more than Gibbs.
ReplyDeleteAny word on who else will be leaving? I understand there might be quite a few.
DUQ, If you'd like to publish my article on the front page of every paper, I certainly wouldn't object! LOL!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I think it is changing. And I think it's changing because blogs and conservative media (and progressive media) are pounding away with the truth. At some point, the pressure will finally become too much for the MSM as everyone knows and openly speaks the truth, and even the MSM will finally start running articles: "what happened to the Democrats?" in which they lament that the party isn't what it once was.
So just keep telling everyone you can the truth, challenge the journalists who repeat the lies with comments at their websites and links to articles like this, and eventually, the MSM will follow.
those stats are startling and more proof the dems will spin their lies even in the face of facts.
ReplyDeleteSo true Patti. The Democrats are trying to sell an image and they don't care about lying about it. It's the same thing with these stats as it is with their claims that they are for tax cuts and "fiscal sanity" -- it's all a lie because they think we're not smart enough to notice!
ReplyDelete"there are six doctors, three car dealers, two funeral directors, an airline pilot and a pizza restaurant owner."
ReplyDeleteI love this!! How cool!
Andrew: First thing to do, let's kill all the lawyers. The "trial lawyers" aka "ambulance chasers" and graduates of the schools of "social justice" have destroyed the profession and are doing a pretty good job of accomplishing the same in Congress. The law should be both a sword and a shield. It's not supposed to be a guillotine. The Democrats have done an excellent job of recruiting the so-called modern legal profession. I'll take a plumber any day in the week.
ReplyDeleteI don't care about them being lawyers, what bothers me is that they're so anti-american. Someday, the public will wake up and be done with the democraps and then America will be a better place.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. This is kind of telling isn't it? This means the Democrats are much more homogenous than the Republicans, which doesn't really surprise me. They are basically a collection of 60s radicals who all went to lawschool and now think they're too important not to run our lives.
ReplyDeleteYou kind of get a gut feeling that this is what the modern Democrat Party has become, but it's nice to see some data to back it up.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the MSM, did you notice that yet another MSM reporter--John Roberts (CNN)--has bailed out and joined Fox News? It looks like anyone with any sense of where media is going is quickly abandoning the old guard. Note that you never see the reverse--Fox News employees leaving to go work for the MSM.
Crispy, I love that too. Congress should be a true cross-section of Americana, and the Republicans are providing it! It makes me very proud of our country that we can have so many normal Americans heading to Congress rather than people who trained as politicians.
ReplyDeleteLawhawk, Lawyers fall into two groups. Unfortunately, the Democrats recruit from the bad group -- the group that should be shot to the moon.
ReplyDeleteDane, I think the Democrats are in the middle of a serious change of character. When it's over, they will either become more like middle-America, and become more acceptable to the public, or they will go further left and become a permanent minority, kind of like free-market liberals in Europe.
ReplyDeleteP.S. LOL at "137 year old Teddy Kennedy and 472 year old Robert Byrd." :-D I think maybe Arlen Specter was hoping to break one of those records before we prematurely kicked him to the curb. John McCain just might make it, though.
ReplyDeleteEd, I think that sums them up a good deal. What's even more interesting is that whenever an institution grows older and older because it's older leaders won't step aside but instead cling-on forever, they end up harming their own future because it becomes impossible to groom the next generation. That could be happening here with the Democrats.
ReplyDeletePitts, I'm glad this data was useful, because you're right -- this is exactly how the democrats have "felt" for years now, and it's nice to have data to back up what seemed so obvious -- even as the Democrats pretended it wasn't true. I wonder how long it will be before this image of the Democrats finally permeates the MSM culture and they start to wonder how the party changed without their seeing it?
ReplyDeleteI did see that about Roberts, and you're right: they can see the writing on the wall. Fox is the future because it's tapped into half of America -- a previously unserved media market! -- and because Fox seems less ideologically lockstep and therefore more free than the other networks. And you're right, you never see the reverse, do you?
Pitts, I'm only guessing about Byrd, few humans were around when he crawled out of the mountains! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI don't know about you, but I'd love to see a mandatory retirement age in the Senate.
Mandatory retirement in Senate: I agree. There's no reason these guys need to be in there for that long. It doesn't serve the public. Someone who has been in past 80 is probably getting senile and is there more for ego than for service. Tell me that Kennedy wasn't there more for the glory than for the people? He probably told himself he was there for the people, but it was more to make himself a legend. Same with Byrd. He was God-like in WV. God knows how?!? Fortunately, the people of PA finally realized that Specter was a dinosaur and got rid of him.
ReplyDeletePitts, I am indeed glad Specter is gone, and the rest. As for Byrd? I think that tells us a lot about the Welfare state that is West Virginia.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of hitting 80, I think you're right. Many of the older Senators were little more than drooling idiots who just pushed a "yes" "no" button according to what their staff told them. Marshall was the same way on the Supreme Court. It's no secret that in his last few years, his clerks were writing his decisions really without his input.
If these people won't step aside, then it's time to put in place rules that make them step aside. Our country should not be run by anonymous clerks.
Another great message, Andrew. And yet I wonder why this is the kind of info that only makes it on blogs and not on the Republican talking points and marketing campaigns.
ReplyDeleteWriter X, Thanks! I think the answer to that is that the Republicans remain very poor at public relations. They don't have a sense of what messages they should put out, how they should put those out, and what they need to do to expose Democratic myths.
ReplyDeleteI've said before that they really need drop all of their marketing/PR people and hire someone better. Sadly, that never happens.
That's a good point. You need replacements and if you don't let the replacements come up through the ranks, you eventually drain the pond.
ReplyDelete