A conservative friend of mine claims that during the 2004 comapaign
the Democrats  raised more money than the Republicans, and that much
of their contributions came from large corporations, whereas, most of
the money raised by Republicans came from small businesses. This
strikes me as backwards. What are the official results of money
contributed to both parties, and is it possible to identify the
sources? Also, who is responsible for compiling this data and making
it available to the public?

Hello,

As of Dec. 14, the Democratic Party had raised $710 million in the
2003-04 election cycle. The GOP had raised $863 million.

Source: Center for Responsive Politics, "Political Parties,"
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.asp.

The parties themselves must compile records of contributions and send
them to the Federal Elections Commission.

Source: FEC, "The FEC and the Federal Campaign Finance Law," Feb.
2004, http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/fecfeca.shtml.

Reports must include the names and addresses of contributors. See, for
example, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's latest
filing at (http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00000935/155728/sa/ALL).

Contributions from corporations themselves are illegal. People can
only donate to federal candidates as individuals or through
political-action committees. Therefore, your friend cannot be exactly
right.

Companies used to be able to contribute "soft money" to political
parties. If we look at the top soft-money contributors in the 2002
election cycle, we see that the biggest companies on the list
contributed more to Republicans than to Democrats. Freddie Mac, AT&T,
Philip Morris, Microsoft, Fannie Mae, Anheuser-Busch, Archer Daniels
Midland, Verizon, Citigroup, SBC Communications, Pfizer, Blue
Cross/Blue Shield, Bristol-Myers Squibb and AFLAC all favored the GOP.
Only Goldman Sachs and Viacom preferred the Democrats. The Democrats
did, however, get a lot of money from law firms, labor unions and
smaller media companies.

Source: CRP, "Top Soft Money Donors: 2002 Election Cycle,"
http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softtop.asp?txtCycle=2002&txtSort=amnt.

I hope this answer meets your needs. If not, please request clarification.

Search strategy:
No searching was necessary for this answer, as I was already familiar
with the sites. However, a search on "federal campaign financing"
provides good results.

The answer provided me with all the information I needed, plus, it
referred me to several other sources where I can find additional data.
A great experience that I will use again.

OpenSecrets.org has a large amount of data that may be of interest to
you. Here, for instance, is a list of the top overall donors:

http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topcontribs.asp?cycle=2004

Here are "Stats at a Glance":

http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/stats.asp?Cycle=2004