Dave Gilson

Senior Editor

San Francisco native, word wrangler, data cruncher, chart drawer, pun maker. Recent areas of interest: campaign finance, income inequality, prison riots.

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Dave Gilson has worked at Mother Jones since 2003. Previously, he worked for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and the Northern California bureau of the New York Times.

12 Silly Ways to Predict the Election

Eyebrows, donuts, Chia pets, Halloween masks, and other less-than-scientific indications that Obama will beat Romney.

—By Dave Gilson

| Fri Oct. 5, 2012 3:01 AM PDT

If you want a fairly good sense of who will prevail in the presidential election, you could check out the numbers at TPM's Polltracker or the latest FiveThirtyEight forecast. But if you're less concerned with stuff like sample sizes, margins of error, or statistical rigor, you might consult any of these less than scientific indicators of who will win the White House.

In case you lost track, that's eight indicators favoring Obama, one favoring Romney, and three with no clear favorite. Take that, Nate Silver.

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Charts: You Might Be the 47 Percent If…

…you don't owe federal income taxes because you're a working mom, a soldier, a millionaire, or a corporation.

—By Tasneem Raja, Jaeah Lee, Dave Gilson, and Dana Liebelson

| Tue Sep. 18, 2012 3:47 PM PDT

By now you've no doubt heard Mitt Romney's thoughts about the "47 percent" of Americans "who pay no income tax." But are you one of them? You might be if you are…

Who Was at Romney's "47 Percent" Fundraiser?

—By Dave Gilson

| Tue Sep. 18, 2012 4:01 AM PDT

Marc Leder, left, hosted a fundraiser for Mitt Romney at his Boca Raton home on May 17, 2012.

Update: Following the release of the full "47 percent" transcript, we've ID'd some more potential donors. See below.

As Mother Jones reported yesterday, speaking at a private fundraiser in Florida this May, Mitt Romney expressed his disdain for "the 47 percent" of Americans who are "dependent upon government," "believe that they are victims," and "will vote for the president no matter what." The event was held at the Boca Raton home of private equity manager Marc Leder, who has donated $225,000 to the pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future and $63,330 to the Romney Victory PAC. Employees of his firm, Sun Capital Partners, have given more than $970,000 to the Romney campaign and its related PACs in this election cycle (including donations from spouses).

More MoJo coverage of Mitt Romney:

So who else was on hand for Romney's "off the cuff" remarks at Leder's spread on May 17? According to the TC Palm, 150 people attended the $50,000-per-plate event. The guest list hasn't been made public, but some possible attendees can be picked out of campaign finance records.

A search for Florida-based donors brings up more than 30 people who gave $50,000 to the Romney Victory PAC between May 1 and May 17:

Name	Occupation	Company	City
Dixie Arthur	Accountant	ASAP Capital Partners	Tampa
Thomas D. Arthur	Retired		Tampa
Robert M. Beall	Chairman	Beall's Inc	Bradenton
Douglas F. Berman	Fund Manager	HIG Capital	Weston
Timothy M. Bryan	Chairman & CEO	Galaxe Solutions	Key Biscayne
Mitchel A. Burns	Chairman Emeritus	Ryder System	Miami
Christopher Cline	Executive	Foresight Management	Palm Beach Gardens
Richard A. Corbett	Real Estate Developer	Concorde Companies	Tampa
Jeffrey Feingold	CEO	McNa Dental Plans	Delray Beach
James P. Gills	Ophthalmologist	St Luke's Cataract & Laser Institute	Tarpon Springs
F. Phillip Handy	CEO	Strategic Industries	Winter Park
Michael Hechberger	COO	Infinity Sales Group	Boca Raton
Gabe Hoffman	Managing Member Of General Partner	Cardens Capital	Miami Beach
Manuel Kadre	Attorney	Manuel Kadre Pa	Coral Gables
Jonathan I. Kislak	Venture Capital	Antares Capital	Miami Shores
Rafael Kravec	Retired		Bal Harbour
Sidney W. Lassen	Business Executive	Sizeler Realty	Palm Beach
Lisa J. Leder	Homemaker [Marc Leder's ex-wife]		Boca Raton
E. Barry Mansur	Investments	Mansur Realty	Captiva
Henry Mccance	Venture Capital	Greylock Partners	Lake Wales
Dr. Roger Medel	Physician	Mednax Inc	Davie
Manuel Medina	CEO & President	Medina Capital Partners	Miami
Thomas Neff	Chairman	Spencer Stuart	North Palm Beach
William D. Perez	Senior Consultant	Greenhill & Co	Naples
Randal L. Ringhaver	Chairman & President	Ring Power Corp	Saint Augustine
Raul Rodriguez	CEO	Clinical Medical Services	Miami Lakes
Brian D. Schwartz	Private Equity	HIG Capital	Fort Lauderdale
John H. Sykes	Self-Employed	Sykes Enterprises	Tampa
Ellen Teresi	Publishing Executive	Paisano Publications	Fort Lauderdale
Joseph Teresi	Publisher/CEO	Paisano Publications	Fort Lauderdale
Mrs. Anthony Traviesa	Venture Capital	V3 Partners Llp	Tampa
Robert Zangrillo	Founder	Dragon Global Management	Miami Beach

Source: Sunlight Foundation Influence Explorer

A broader search for big Florida donors suggests some more contenders. For example, Bill Bain, the retired founder of Bain & Company and Bain Capital, who lives in Naples, gave $50,000 to the Romney campaign PAC on April 25, less than a month before the fundraiser. Might he have driven across the state to hear Romney talk in Boca Raton? Perhaps, but the Leder event was just one of several fundraising events Romney attended in Florida in this time period, including another in Boca the same day.

We'll update this post as we try to confirm these and any additional names.

Update: The complete transcript of Romney's remarks provides additional clues about who was there. A few names are mentioned, starting with one "Hilary":

Romney: And by the way, I am serious about the food. Bring that…clear the place, but Hilary has to eat her beets. [Audience laughs.]

Was this directed at Hilary Ross, a Palm Beach resident who gave $75,800 to the Romney Victory PAC two days before the event? (Her husband Wilbur gave the same amount on the same day and had previously given $50,000 in late April.) Or was it Hillary Krouse, a Boca Raton resident who gave $73,300 two days earlier? She's the wife of Rodger Krouse, the business partner of the event's host, Sun Capital Partners chief executive Marc Leder.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Map: How Much Do Your Local Teachers Earn?

Are they scraping by or making bank? Some data behind the education debate.

—By Dave Gilson, Tasneem Raja, and Jaeah Lee

| Fri Sep. 14, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

The Chicago teacher strike has resurrected the question at the center of much edupontificating: Are American teachers underpaid or overpaid?

For some perspective, we've compiled data on the average wages of elementary-school, middle-school, and high school teachers in more than 300 metropolitan areas. As you'll see, most teachers make more than $45,320, the average yearly wage for all occupations tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Yet the range of what they earn varies widely: Elementary-school teachers in Jefferson City, Missouri, earn an average of $37,090; their colleagues in Long Island, New York, earn an average of $90,560.

Click on a city on the map below for more information on teachers' average wages within its greater metropolitan area. Note: Earnings do not include benefits.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2011 wage estimates

Charts: Republican Platforms, Then and Now

—By Dave Gilson

| Thu Aug. 30, 2012 3:02 AM PDT

On Tuesday, the Republican Party released its 2012 party platform, a 62-page, 32,000-word treatise on its agenda, which includes priorities such as reconsidering a return to the gold standard, bringing back Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and ignoring climate change.

Platforms' planks come and go: For instance, accusing Democrats of "work[ing] unceasingly to achieve their goal of national socialism" (1952), increasing federal arts funding (1976), or calling for biodegradable plastics (1992). But some core themes remain the same. For a quick look at how Republican platforms have changed in the past seven decades, I examined some of the party platforms kept on file with the University of California-Santa Barbara's American Presidency Project. A few things that stood out:

Platforms are getting longer: The 1948 GOP platform clocked in at a tidy 2,739 words. By 2004, it had bloated to more than 41,000 words. This year's is a little slimmer, but it's hardly a quick read.

Heroes and foes come and go: George W. Bush has received more love (relative to the length of party platforms) than even Ronald Reagan, yet he went from being mentioned 250 times in 2000 to being mentioned 3 times in passing this year. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter have been popular bogeymen. Barack Obama, however, is mentioned only 9 times this year, usually in the phrase "Obamacare." Reagan is also mentioned 9 times this year.

Complaning about taxes never grows old: The Republican party seems more tax-obsessed than ever, yet unfair taxation has been a constant theme in its platforms for decades. Debt and God also get regular mentions. Communism, once a top international and domestic concern, is all but forgotten.