TheStreet.com columnist Brett Arends looks at where Republican presidential candidate and current primary-race front-runner Rudy Giuliani is getting some of his campaign donations.
Underreported from the first fund-raising tallies: Giuliani is by far the most popular figure in the gambling and casino industry. He's raised $94,900 from bookies of all stripes so far -- twice as much as anyone else. Las Vegas' Fertitta family, owners of Station Casinos, is among his top contributors.
Giuliani is also the cigarette companies' favorite Republican, collecting $26,050 from the industry in the quarter. That's five times as much as cigarette makers gave to nonsmoking Mormon Mitt Romney.
And Rudy is the toast of the town for maybe the most politically incorrect industry of them all: oil and gas. The oilmen handed him checks totaling $216,123 in the quarter, nearly twice as much as they gave anyone else. Granted, it has mainly been the left that sees this as a sinful industry, but these days even evangelical Christians are starting to get antsy about global warming.
Giuliani can't win the GOP's 2008 nomination without winning a chunk of the conservative/Christian vote. He doesn't have to win it all - just win a chunk of it and let the rest get split by the other candidates. Whether or not his strong support from industries many on the social right consider "vices" will hurt his political chances I don't know. I suspect not - Americans, even religious conservatives, see gambling and tobacco differently than, say, pornography. Ditto alcohol, though it's not mentioned in Arends' piece.
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