From time to time, the issue of academic support (or non-support) for the left arises. One may not consider Senator John Kerry, Democrat, to be "left," but I found these statistics revealing: "David M July 16, 2004 "Political giving at Ivy League schools "I was wondering which candidates the faculty and staff at Ivy League schools were financially supporting.__I found the money in politics databases_at PoliticalMoneyLine's web site._ The data include the Federal Election Commission's records of individuals who contribute over $200 to political campaigns, including in most cases the individuals' employers. _ "In my queries, I found 792 donations to the 2004 campaigns of Bush and Kerry from individuals employed by Ivy League schools._ An astonishing 92% of those donations were to Kerry._ Dartmouth had the highest percent for Kerry (97%) and Princeton the highest for Bush (16%)._ Harvard had more than double the total donations of any other school,_ while Brown and Dartmouth had the fewest total donations._ Here are the results: "Brown:__Kerry 24, Bush 3 (Kerry 89%) Columbia:_ Kerry 118, Bush 18__(Kerry 87%) Cornell:_ Kerry 76, Bush 6_(Kerry 93%) Dartmouth:_ Kerry_ 30, Bush 1_(Kerry 97%) Harvard:_ Kerry 280, Bush 17_(Kerry 94%) Penn: _Kerry 38, Bush 2_(Kerry 95%) Princeton:_ Kerry 74, Bush 14_(Kerry 84%) Yale:_ Kerry 85, Bush 6_(Kerry 93%)________________ ------------------------------------------- Total: Kerry 725, Bush 67 (Kerry 92%)" http://davidm.blogspot.com/2004/07/political-giving-at-ivy-league-schools.html DON'T YOU THINK THIS IS JUST A LITTLE UNBALANCED? -Orson
Nice article, Orson. Obviously the American intellectual elite supports Kerry, a support probably augmented by what some consider a controversial foreign policy of Bush based on unilateralism. I wonder how Gore would have reacted in the aftermath of the 911 massacre. Would have he acted in a different way? Wouldn’t he have bomb Afghanistan, a nest of terrorists? Would have he done the same with Iraq if he were supplied similar intelligence reports? After all this war against Iraq is illegal (and thus so unpopular) because French and Russian interests collided with those of the US. NO ethical or moral reasons, just economic ones. In addition, Clinton often bombed Iraq, and in 1998 he was getting ready to launch a stronger campaign. Aided by Blair, a Leftist politician. I think French and Russians agreed to it back then if their oil interests in the region were not hurt….. The UN and its Security Council, the source of legitimacy…..
Obviously people with education have a clear choice. No confusing this group with The NASCAR Dads is there?
Re: Re: Ivy League Support's Kerry 92% This is another example of manufactured news, as are most polls. Let's see, we take a SMALL sample (for example, Yale has well over 1,300 faculty, not counting staff) at 8 universities (out of the more than 2,500). What can we conclude? That certain faculty who teach at historically liberal institutions located in geographic regions that tend to be overwhelmingly Democrat will favor the Democratic candidate. NEWS FLASH samples taken from Wellesley and UC Berkeley would have the same outcome...what a shocker! This is not about Kerry and Bush--it is about democrat vs. republican. These same areas voted for Mondale and Dukakis. The theoretical environment in which those of us in academia interact tends to be more conducive to liberal, rather than conservative, ideologies--although I have highly educated academic colleagues on both sides of the political fence. The tiny sample of educated people reported on this blog tells us very little about the political preferences of "people with education". Tony Pina Faculty, Cal State San Bernardino (certainly not an ivy league school, but I did see some "creeping charlies" on campus)
Re: Re: Re: Ivy League Support's Kerry 92% Thanks Tony for puting it into perspective - my thoughts exactly. I'm automatically distrustful of bloggers. I don't know who they are or what credentials they have - anyone can post anything they want on the Internet, it doesn't have to be true.
