Partisanship On Display
Note: tumblr ate the initial, more comprehensive version of this post. :( Feel free to ping me for more details.
Last weekend, as I was leaving Seattle, I passed this display in the airport bookstore:
You may have noticed, as I did, the following: a book by Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson; a book by Republican-appointed fed chairman and face of the 2008 bailouts, Ben Bernake; a book by professional media troll Bill O’Reilly about conservative messiah Ronald Reagan; and a book about Democrat Hilary Clinton, subtly titled “Unlikeable”.
I found myself curious whether Hudson News’ literary partisanship would be reflected in its campaign donations. I took a quick look using OpenSecrets.org. I couldn’t find a listing for Hudson Group, but Advent International, a private equity firm which owns a majority stake in Hudson Group, contributed $141,600 in 2014, 93% of it to Republicans. Not a ton of cash for such a huge firm, but then I doubt this covers all of the actual spending. (The page for Koch Industries shows about $10 mil in donations in 2014 while the most widely quoted estimate is that they spent $300 mil on the 2014 elections.) Also of note: Advent International principal Gabriel Gomez ran as a Republican against MA Congressman Ed Markey and lost in 2013.
This whole exercise leaves me with an uneasy feeling. Despite the hard work of OpenSecrets and the Sunlight Foundation, it’s still terribly difficult to trace the influence of these wealthy donors. Even harder: understanding the social impact of political bias among cultural influencers like booksellers.
But hey, I did get to contribute a couple of pull requests.