Tech Places Presidential Bets

(MoneyWatch)  The U.S. presidential election is roaring up. Industry contributions have become a standard feature of the ritual, so I thought it might be interesting to see how high tech invests -- oh, sorry -- donates. You might think that companies would be pretty cold-blooded about such things, wanting to keep on the good side of whoever takes residence on Pennsylvania Avenue. But some time at Maplight.org (a great site for seeing the connection between politics and money) showed that donations have largely been fairly one-sided, with some surprising strength by people who cannot win their parties' nominations.

Here's a breakout of donations by various industry sectors that together more or less make up the technology industry. All totals are as of July 31, 2008.

Industry Sector	Barack Obama	Hillary Clinton	Ron Paul	John McCain	Industry Totals
Computer Software	$1,257,496	$838,301	$492,121	$228,937	$2,816,855
Data Processing and Computer Services	$522,179	$513,819	$203,602	$154,025	$1,393,625
Computers, components, and accessories	$448,173	$434,341	$146,204	$138,058	$1,166,776
Online computer services	$1,147,198	$508,651	$202,421	$170,735	$2,029,005
Computer manufacture & services	$414,964	$327,788	$116,942	$73,216	$932,910
Electronics manufacturing & services	$195,339	$220,750	$62,370	$139,000	$617,459
Misc. Communications & Electronics	$49,529	$63,660	$500	$9,500	$123,189
Cellular systems and equipment	$138,758	$247,635	$18,743	$104,800	$509,936
Other Communications Services	$52,108	$30,945	$2,100	$13,650	$98,803
Satellite communications	$17,250	$74,675	$2,685	$11,100	$105,710
Telecommunications	$125,301	$343,405	$16,650	$78,325	$563,681
Telephone & communications equipment	$114,871	$87,860	$33,182	$31,151	$267,064
Long-distance telephone & telegraph service	$46,200	$38,850	$1,500	$100,850	$187,400
Telephone utilities	$298,065	$337,277	$73,171	$409,585	$1,118,098
Totals	$4,827,431	$4,067,957	$1,372,191	$1,662,932	$11,930,511

Notice that even though Hillary Clinton conceded the primary on June 7 and McCain had the Republican nomination wrapped up months ago, both Clinton and Ron Paul received amounts very close to the two nominees, suggesting strongly divided leanings in the industry.

In almost every category, both Obama and Hillary Clinton far out-raised McCain. The only exception is telephone utilities, where McCain raised almost $410,000 to Obama's $298,065 and Clinton's $337,277. It will be interesting to see where things stand when the August numbers get added in, probably a few days from now.

However, if dollars beget consideration, the technology industry will be standing in a queue behind other parts of the business economy that give more. The next two tables (data from OpenSecrets.org, another great money and politics site) show industry donations for McCain and Obama as of July 31. The closest match to the collection of sectors above is the Computers/Internet category -- not a perfect match, but the numbers are reasonably close. For McCain, that group is 17th out of 20 business sectors and special interest groups.

Rank	Industry	Total
1	Retired	$23,536,345
2	Lawyers/Law Firms	$7,959,446
3	Securities & Investment	$6,893,293
4	Real Estate	$6,796,844
5	Misc Finance	$3,907,413
6	Health Professionals	$3,563,798
7	Misc Business	$3,122,709
8	Business Services	$2,550,153
9	Commercial Banks	$1,868,224
10	Insurance	$1,655,352
11	Oil & Gas	$1,619,390
12	General Contractors	$1,401,581
13	Misc Manufacturing & Distributing	$1,325,847
14	Civil Servants/Public Officials	$1,281,202
15	Education	$1,187,867
16	Republican/Conservative	$1,182,474
17	Computers/Internet	$1,051,038
18	TV/Movies/Music	$885,659
19	Lobbyists	$841,716
20	Automotive	$835,980

As we've seen, Obama seems to have greater affinity for high tech, but even here it only rises to tenth place.

Rank	Industry	Total
1	Lawyers/Law Firms	$24,060,136
2	Retired	$23,180,767
3	Education	$10,375,038
4	Securities & Investment	$9,873,356
5	Business Services	$6,746,937
6	Real Estate	$6,421,385
7	Health Professionals	$5,852,212
8	Misc Business	$5,411,083
9	TV/Movies/Music	$5,161,298
10	Computers/Internet	$4,258,226
11	Misc Finance	$3,970,218
12	Civil Servants/Public Officials	$3,850,719
13	Printing & Publishing	$3,478,240
14	Democratic/Liberal	$2,899,338
15	Other	$2,097,412
16	Commercial Banks	$2,081,809
17	Hospitals/Nursing Homes	$1,681,256
18	Non-Profit Institutions	$1,563,082
19	Construction Services	$1,407,576
20	Insurance	$1,290,434

It's clear that high tech is hardly the biggest spending industry, which seems a puzzle, given the issues -- ranging from consumer privacy and availability of guest worker visas to telecom immunity for cooperating with homeland security -- facing it. You'd think that lubricating the relationship with government might be worth more than a sum that would barely be a rounding error in Microsoft's or Google's annual profit. The two top donors for both McCain and Obama? Retired persons and lawyers.

Voting booth instruction image via Flickr user spcoon, CC 2.0.