BonnerSprings.com

Susan Anderson views donations to political campaigns in the same way she does giving to her church.

Anderson, an information-technology manager for Ottawa University, lives in Bonner Springs and has given a total of $1,000 to the John Edwards and Barack Obama presidential campaigns.

"I don't have a lot of money, but I think it's important," Anderson said.

"The reason I give money is the same reason you tithe to the church," Anderson said. "I want to make sure people have the money to get the word out and spread the message." Anderson said she tithes to her church, "so it can work for peace and help the poor. Those (Edwards and Obama) are the two candidates I thought most likely to work for peace and help the poor."

Bonner Springs and Edwardsville are home to a few generous contributors of presidential campaigns. Donors gave $2,316 in Bonner and $180 in Edwardsville, and a total of $52,528 in Wyandotte County.

Johnson County gave $356,392 total, for an average of 79 cents per person.

The highest average for presidential campaign donations in the state was Shawnee County, with a total of $434,559, for $2.56 per person. Next was Douglas County, with a total of $170,578, and $1.70 per person, using 2000 census figures.

The per-resident average of Bonner, about 33 cents per person, closely matched that of Wyandotte County - 34 cents per resident - using U.S. Census estimates from 2006.

Edwardsville didn't quite bring the same numbers, and its per-resident average donation came to 4 cents per person.

In explaining her donations, Anderson said money was especially important in presidential campaigns these days, because "not enough people are involved or even know the candidates. So the only way to reach them is in the living room, and that takes advertising dollars, and it requires people to make calls."

Anderson said she didn't know why contributions to presidential campaigns were fewer in less-populated areas.

But, she said, "I tend to hang around people who are involved and give (politics) critical thought. I like to have discussions on it."

The lion's share of the contributions from Bonner Springs and Edwardsville went to the campaign of Republican Ron Paul, a total of $1,391 from four individuals.

The next-biggest recipient was Edwards' campaign, which pulled in $535, from two donors, and Obama's campaign, which took in $500 from one donor.

The most impressive contribution listed on the Federal Elections Commission Web site for either town, though, turns out to have been the result of a billing mistake.

Kay Shevling, a retired schoolteacher, is shown on the FEC site as having donated $2,335 to the Edwards campaign in three different contributions. The error was a $2,300 contribution, which Shevling said was a mistaken billing to her credit card by the Edwards campaign, which quickly corrected the mistake when she called about it, Shevling said.

Shevling said she wished she could be so generous.

"I just don't have money to give," she said. "I've been more involved lately, you know, with my kids grown and gone," and she said she spent a day or two manning phones for the John Kerry presidential campaign of 2004.

Paul Briggs, an engineer for BPU who lives in Bonner Springs, said he's given $500 to the Ron Paul campaign, $100 each month since November 2007, though the FEC site shows no contributions from any Bonner resident later than January.

Briggs said he'd been contributing $100 every month to Paul's campaign because he believed in the message of the congressman from Lake Jackson, Texas.

"To put it in a nutshell, I think he's the only one running who cares about the Constitution of the United States. All the rest of them ignore it."

Like many Paul supporters, Briggs is passionate about his candidate.

"I'm thoroughly disgusted," he said with a laugh, "about the contest. With the three that get talked about now, I will note for vote any of them. I will either vote third-party or write in Ron Paul."

Another generous donor, Joseph Bolz, an Edwardsville resident and an electrician at BPU, donated a total of $790 to Paul's campaign. Bolz couldn't be located for a comment.

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