Political donations revealing

Try this quiz. Which party, Republican or Democratic, attracted donations from the all of the following: the Utah Education Association teacher's union, the Utah Beer Wholesalers, Rocky Mountain Power, Qwest, Gold Cross ambulance, 1-800-CONTACTS, the Utah Medical Association and the Utah Auto Dealers Association?

Answer: both parties.

But those donors are among the few that the two parties have in common in Utah — some big utilities, commercial interests and schoolteachers hoping for help from both sides of the political aisle.

Otherwise, the parties have quite different donor bases.

Utah Republicans meet this Saturday and Democrats the following Saturday to pick their party leaders for the next two years. And one of the main goals for each new chairman is fundraising — collecting the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to keep party headquarters open, train state and local candidates, poll and stay in touch with both base supporters and independents who may be swayed to join party ranks.

GOP Vice Chairman Todd Weiler, who seeks his post again in Saturday's convention, says Utah's majority party "will break about even" in finances when Chairman Stan Lockhart steps down. "We normally end an election cycle in debt. But we didn't do that this year." Two years ago, Republicans found themselves $100,000 in the red after the 2006 elections, causing the firing of the then-executive director and a massive fundraising campaign.

Democratic Party Executive Director Todd Taylor said Democrats will enter their June 20 convention about $150,000 "in the black." But almost all of that is in the Karen Shepherd intern fund, a fund started by the former U.S. congresswoman with leftover campaign funds after her 1994 defeat.

While each party has some big donors, for a quarter century state Democrats have relied on a few very big donors to keep themselves financially competitive with Utah Republicans, who have a larger donor base.

Look at some of the party donors listed below, and then guess to which party they contributed:

 Labor unions. They gave almost $61,000 to the Utah Democratic Party in 2008 (counting both the party's federal and state accounts). In comparison, unions gave a skimpy $1,000 to the Utah Republican Party (all of which came from the Utah Education Association).