Where the Big Money was in Coakley vs Brown

All of the rule-bending and shenanigans around the Democrats’ attempts to pass a health-care bill were necessitated by Scott Brown’s stunning Senate upset in Massachusetts. You may recall my reporting at the time that health-care lobbyists, and especially pharmaceutical PACs, went all out to save Martha Coakley’s candidacy in the end. Now, at OpenSecrets.org, we’ve got hard numbers from that special election.

• From business PACs, Coakley outraised Brown more than 10:1 — $123,450 to $11,500
• The Health sector favored Coakley 15:1 — $248,112 to $16,280
• Brown, nonetheless, outraised Coakley overall $15.5 million to $9.6 million.