When Someone Talks About Special Interests...

Professor Antony Davies of Duquesne University has put together some interesting charts on special interest donations to political candidates and political parties for the period from 1989 to 2009.

There is only one really big special interest when it comes to buying influence-labor unions.  In fact, labor unions gave twice as much money to politicians as the Telecommunications, Insurance, Tobacco, Pharmaceuticals and Real Estate industries, combined!  This is not influence...it is ownership of the Democrats.

Labor unions gave 10 times as much to the Democrats as they did to Republicans.  There was no special interest group that came close to favoring Republicans over Democrats in similar fashion.  In fact, the Teachers' Union and Lawyers tilted even more to Democrats than labor unions giving Republicans almost nothing.

You can see all the charts here.

Via The Corner and PowerLine.