Campaign tidbit: Local money

The primary season grinds on. We read reports that Clinton collected more cash than Obama in the 4th quarter of 2007 -- but Obama has pulled in $32 million in January. The mind reels.

I thought it would be fun to look at how the candidates are doing at raking in cash here in the San Francisco Mission district. There's a cool tool available online that let's you see who gave over $200 by street address and zip code. Close enough, though when I plug in 94110, I get most of Bernal Heights as well as the South Mission.

Here's what I learned: through the end of 2007, there had been 216 contributions to aspiring Presidents from the area. Only 18 went to Republicans, 14 of those to Ron Paul.

All the others, 198, went to Democrats in this distribution:

• Obama -- 87

• Clinton -- 65

• Edwards -- 35

• Other Democrats, mostly Kucinich with a few to Richardson -- 11

The tool doesn't easily let you pull totals, but impressionistically, it looks to me as if higher dollar amounts among Clinton's donors meant about equal takes from the area. She might even have brought in more, despite having less contributions.

Now I've lived here over 30 years and I know a lot of my neighbors, but the following impressions of who gave to whom could be just idle smoke blowing. Nonetheless I offer them.

• Folks active in the local Democratic party noticeably gave to Clinton. No surprise there; she's as close as we've got to an establishment candidate.

• Somebody swept through this area, and probably the whole city, organizing real estate agents to contribute to Clinton. They were quite generous.

• Senior nonprofit managers also put out for Clinton. Many of them are senior women who probably went through some struggles of their own to win their current prominence. Their support for this accomplished woman is not surprising.

• The most obvious group among the Obama supporters were public interest lawyers. Not really surprising, given his background.

It will be interesting to see how the area votes on Tuesday. I would expect Obama to take a majority, though early votes for Edwards will cut into his lead.

Go take a look at the Fundrace tool for your area and see who your more affluent neighbors are supporting.