A commenter pointed out that it’s hard to follow the web of money that’s surrounding Del. Bob McDonnell. And she’s right, it is confusing. So I’ve taken a first stab at illustrating the characters involved and the flow of money.
This excludes DeLay and Abramoff’s extensive additional dealings, of course — see Jen Sorensen’s stab at it in this week’s Slowpoke. I intend to continue to modify this graphic as more information becomes available. We may well learn that some of the many characters in the DeLay and Abramoff scandals connect to McDonnell or Virginia politics. And I may figure out how to illustrate the friendships between these individuals, their roles in one another’s organizations, and their collective work against Virginia Republicans, which is telling, though I’m not really sure what it’s telling me.
I encourage you to provide suggestions of how to improve this.
Hooo-eee, thanks so much for the pointer to Slowpoke’s chart. I see she’s made the same point as my comment, with the slight difference that her version is screamingly funny. Careful as you embellish your chart: no Lhasa Apsos!!
I really like what you’re doing with this.
All of Virginia’s republican congressmen have recieved generous
donations from DeLay’s PAC. I think Randy Forbes is the “high roller”
and accepted 30K from him (or something to this amount); I also Virgil
Goode took some cash too…anyone who takes money from that worm DeLay
should share a prison cell with him…men like DeLay will destroy our
Democracy and they doing a pretty good job of it so far…
Isn’t there a site out there that shows what candidates accepted money from where? Not that this proves anything, but it would interesting to see all the financial connections between Delay’s PAC and the political candidates.
Since the illegal donations most likely went into a general bank account for this PAC, ANY funds coming out have some connection to the illegal donations.
Isn’t there a site out there that shows what candidates accepted money from where? Not that this proves anything, but it would interesting to see all the financial connections between Delay’s PAC and the political candidates.
There certainly is, Jim — on a federal level, it’s Open Secrets, and on a state level, it’s VPAP. I started on some of that homework last night, but I had to go to bed.
It’s Cantor’s role that particularly interests me. He was both receiving money from Abramoff ($12k) and being attacked with money Abramoff funneled to use against him ($15k). I wonder if he has any idea.
Waldo:
I really like what you’re doing here (connecting Republicans to national Republicans), but I unfortunately think that the complexity of the issue renders it rather politically inert…it’s just way too much to swallow.
The Kaine “sugar daddy” ads were embarrassingly ineffective – but they have some really good mail pieces that connect Kilgore to national Republican embarrassments.
Two degrees of separation down here in House 64th: Lapetina (R, duh) took a contribution from Rep. JA Davis (R-1st, duh), who took a contribution from TRMPAC. Lapetina also took some of Pat Robertson’s African blood money.
Waldo, your reportorial skills far surpass those of the majority of reporters covering this campaign. Bob Gibson and Pamela Stallsmith are the lone exceptions. Gibson and Stallsmith are noteworthy in that they are not averse to digging deeper than the press release or rehashing the dinner menu.
I’m hoping one of the “big guns” will take note of what you have pieced together here. Bravo!
You’re violating U.N. anti-torture guidelines! This is incredible.