>An interest that concentrates its resources on one party in one region -
>which probably would have voted its way anyway - can hardly be said to be
>changing many minds.
This is similar to the ingenious argument from the industry about advertising. Advertising is not designed to attract more smokers, it is just a complex way of competing for market share that is already fixed. (Hence the even more ingenious counter-argument in the UK that the tobacco companies have to advertise cigarettes to make up for the tens of thousands of smokers who die every year).
>From the Common Cause website:
http://www.ccsi.com/~comcause/news/smoke.html#A DECADE OF POLITICAL GIVING
A DECADE OF POLITICAL GIVING
Tobacco interests gave a total of $20,568,954 in political contributions during the ten-year period 1986 through 1995 - including $11,614,585 in PAC contributions and
$8,954,369 in soft money contributions.
Republican party committees received $7,047,685 in tobacco industry soft money contributions compared to $1,906,684 in soft money contributions to the Democrats during the period.
According to Common Cause's analysis of tobacco industry PAC contributions during the ten-year period:
Overall tobacco industry PAC contributions to current House Members were nearly evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, with Republican Representatives receiving $2,338,242 and Democratic Representatives receiving $2,145,476.
Overall tobacco industry PAC contributions to current Senators favored Republicans two-to-one over Democrats, with Republican Senators receiving $1,200,111 and Democratic Senators receiving $607,346.
Philip Morris, with $3,680,128 in PAC contributions, and RJ Reynolds, with $3,356,888 in PAC contributions, were the top two tobacco PAC donors during the period.
Note
The Common Cause study "Smoke & Mirrors" is based on PAC reports covering the period January 1, 1986 through December 31, 1995 and political party soft money reports covering the period January 1, 1986 through December 31, 1995 filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Chris Burford
London