The 4-day Republican love-in known as the inauguration is almost upon us. 3 candlelight dinners, 9 balls, "lectures and seminars," and, of course, a prayer service will all be part of the hoopla.
Who's ponying up the big bucks for all this? While there are no laws regulating contributions to the inauguration, there is a "voluntary cap" of $250,000 and disclosure is mandatory. So the website of the 55th Inauguration has a handy dandy list of donors.
Update [2005-1-15 12:33:42 by hono lulu]: Here's a link for contributors to Clinton's 1997 inauguration. Not a whole lot of overlap.
You'll find the usual suspects of bankers, oil men, and insurance companies. San Diego Charger owner, Alexander Spanos, has ponied up his quarter of a million. As the
Washington Post noted, a mere trifling compared to the $5 million he gave to Progress for America and $1 million for the RNC. In that same article, Washington Post VP Patrick Butler said the company donates enough to make sure it has enough tickets to the Inaugural Ball for its corporate advertisers. At $100,000, that's a lot of tickets. Time Warner's in for $250K.
Geeks won't be surprised to see Microsoft coughing up $100,000 and Qualcomm is in for the same. But Susan and Michael Dell went for the whole $250,000.
And it looks like I'm going to have start finding somebody to ship me some RC Cola because both Pepsi and Coke are in for $100,000.
Looked at state by state, it's no big surprise to see a lot from Texas (18) and Florida (17). New York (14) and California (33) are, well, big, and Washington DC (26) is Washington DC. Most other states have around 2 to 5 contributors. Illinois has 2, Michigan has 3, and Ohio has...8? And unlike other states, even Texas, half of them are individuals, not corporations. Anybody got some tin foil they can loan me?
But the contributor that gets the biggest PFFFTT award is the Credit Union National Association. So much for supporting your community.
*Note: As of Friday, January 14, it seems they're still a little short by about $15 million and change. Gosh, I hope they're not having trouble raising money because people decided to give it to people who just had their whole lives wiped out by a natural disaster. Nah, it's not like they would have anything to wear to a ball, anyway.
And those who wouldn't attend any of these events if they paid you, don't forget Sycamore's Inauguration Guide for Pissed-Off Patriots.