How much money do unions, the netroots and wealthy liberals raise for democrats

[Juche]

While watching TYT video it was said that the public option was sacrificed so that insurance companies would not donate all their money to the GOP, and would still give some to the dems.

My question is, how much money do insurance companies give?

Recently it was found that unions give more money to blue dogs than any other group. Unions give more money than health insurance companies. I don't have the chart onhand, but suffice it to say they are a big donor.

I think unions put something like $450 million into the 2008 election cycle.

The netroots put $500 million into Obama 2008 (netroots meaning the 3 million small donors who support liberal and progressives). He got 6.5 million donations from 3 million people, with the average donation being $80, and about 90% of his donations were $100 or less. Keep in mind this is just Obama, not including all the other internet netroots donations that were made to other candidates, to ActBlue, Moveon, ACORN, DFA, etc.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/20/obama_raised_half_a_billion_on.html

I wouldn't be surprised if the netroots put $800 million or more into the 2008 election cycle when you add in all the other politicians and progressive orgs out there.

Then you have wealthy liberals like the members of the Democracy Alliance, celebrities, or liberal fundraisers.

It seems when you add it all up, liberal organizations (I am considering unions, the netroots and wealthy liberals to all be 'liberal sources of cash') easily put 1.5 billion or more into 2008.

I don't get why the dems would care about money from health insurance companies. They are spending 1.4 million a day to block health reform, but liberals were raising far far more than that during the elections of 2008. If you look at the most important days of the 2008 cycle (August-early November) I wouldn't be surprised if liberals were raising $5-10 million or more a day.

Who runs the dem party? Why would you piss off people who put far far more money and volunteer work into your party to appease a company that doesn't? Makes no sense to me if money played a role.

I have no idea what 2010 and 2012 are going to be like, but I bet far more time/money goes into 'better democrats' instead of 2006 and 2008 where it went into 'any democrats, as long as they weren't republicans'. So I'm guessing the next 2 election cycles will be interesting.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. Congressmen often have family members

who work in the very industries that Congress needs to regulate. And don't forget those who are lobbyists. The pigs in Congress don't seem to see any conflict of interest there. They think that the people who support them are too stupid to ever be shocked by their ethics and for the most part, they're right.

[dmr]

3. Bernie Sanders was on the Rick Sanchez show today on CNN

discussing corporate and lobbyists. Pulled the stats off Open Secrets for Mitch McConnell, Max Baucus, and Grassley; and of course Rick was appalled at the amount of influential money given to them.

Sanchez says he plans to do more on who do the Congressional leaders really work for, corporations or the people?

He also discussed SCOTUS and the pending decision they will make on corporate donations.

All of this stuff we already know, but I was glad to hear Sanchez discuss this since he seems to have a wide audience that needs enlightening. The more Americans know, the better it is. I hope.

[Xicano]

2. It makes sense because we've been giving this kind of support unconditionally

They're use to taking our money for granted. I have said before that the only way we're ever going to see change is if we, the democratic base, get a backbone and hold our leaders accountable by not helping them get sent back to Washington if they don't do what we sent them to Washington to do.