Texas professors lean heavily to the left

Houston Chronicle:

Texas university professors overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates in their campaign contributions, a Houston Chronicle study of Federal Election Commission records has found.

Faculty members have contributed $406,384 to Democratic candidates or committees in the 2008 campaign season — 71 percent of their political donations. Republicans have received $135,216, or 24 percent, of donations through the end of March. University personnel gave $27,915 to nonpartisan political action committees or third party candidates.

The professors' top pick was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. She received $129,721 in contributions, ahead of fellow Democrat Barack Obama with $104,911. Republican nominee-presumptive John McCain lagged far behind, in third place with $25,130 in college contributions.

The professors favored Democratic organizations, such as the Democratic National Committee, over Republican groups by more than a 3-to-1 margin.

University of Texas faculty sent the most money to candidates and political committees. UT personnel donated $227,645 — 74 percent to Democrats, 19 percent to Republicans and 7 percent to nonpartisan causes.

Every one of the 10 most politically active colleges leans Democratic, even traditionally conservative campuses such as Texas A&M University.

The most heavily Democratic schools were Houston's Rice University and Fort Worth's Texas Christian University. Ninety-seven percent of the professors' contributions at both schools went to the Democrats.

The most Republican-leaning schools in the top 10 were Southern Methodist University (40 percent) and the University of North Texas (39 percent). SMU will host the George W. Bush Presidential Library. And North Texas was the longtime employer of conservative economics professor and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

Among other Houston schools, donations at the University of Houston were 81 percent Democratic. Two Houston schools gave a majority of campaign dollars to Republicans — Texas Southern and South Texas College of Law — but in each case it was because of the donations of a single professor that were larger than the total given by other faculty members.

The university donors include some prominent Lone Star academics, including University of Texas marketing professor William H. Cunningham, a former UT president who gave to Clinton; UT law professor Lino Graglia, who favors McCain; and Texas A&M neuroscience professor William R. Klemm, who donated to Republican Mitt Romney.

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Lino Graglia was one of my favorite law school professors. He was nominated for the 5th Circuit, by Reagan as I recall, but the Democrats threw a hissy fit because of his opposition to some busing plans. He had a brutally frank speaking style that intimidated some. As a former Marine I had been intimidated by experts, so I enjoyed the banter.

I got a hint that Texas A&M was skewing liberal when they refused to hire the brilliant historian Mark Moyar who wrote Triumph Forsaken. The decision was probably made by folks who would like to forsake our triumph in Iraq.

As liberal as these people are, they are remarkable unsuccessful in the long term in persuading young Texans to be liberals. With in a few years of graduating most become good Republicans, which proves the students are the really smart ones.