The following piece was produced by the Huffington Post's OffTheBus.
Tim Frasca and Denise Wheeler contributed additional reporting to this story.
In the closing days of the third quarter, the leading GOP candidates raised money from some of the richest and whitest zipcodes in America, reveals an analysis of just released federal campaign disclosures by Huffington Post's OffTheBus. They collected this cash the same week that the four major candidates said they were too hindered to participate in the debate aimed at American minority voters.
During the last week of September, former Gov. Mitt Romney vacuumed up more than $73,000 from a ritzy Florida retirement community known as "The Villages," described as a "Republican bastion," by the Miami Herald. While Romney couldn't find time to go attend the Baltimore debate, he managed to visit The Villages at least twice this year. He kicked off his Florida campaign there in February and stumped there again in September.
In the waning days of September, collectively, residents of 10021 and 10022 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, among the wealthiest in the United States, contributed more than $79,000 to the four GOPers. The average income in 10021 is great majority of the people living there are non-Hispanic white.
While most of cash pulled in from these two zips was for native son and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R), who got more than $28,000 of the take, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Romney, and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN) also got some contributions from these zip codes. Compare that to the zip code 10035, just a few miles away in Harlem. The four GOPers got nada from this zip code, where African Americans are the majority and the average income is $26,000.
Indeed, going down the lists of top contributing zip codes that week for the four candidates is like taking a trip through some of the nation's most exclusive neighborhoods. There is 06830 in Greenwich, Connecticut, , where a middling house costs more than a million bucks. There's also 22314 in Alexandria, Virginia, near the nation's capital, home to lobbyists and politicos.
Then there is 75205 in Dallas, Texas. All four of the GOPers who shunned the Baltimore debate got contributions there in late September. This zip code is home to the Dallas Country Club, a "staple of Highland Park's most exclusive social circuit for more than a century," according to the Dallas News. The club made the news earlier this year when the application of Kneeland Youngblood, a prominent African American businessman, who was up to be the club's first black member, was delayed for the sixth year, reportedly over questions about his involvement with the Rev. Jess Jackson's Rainbow/Push Coalition. File that in the category if the things that make you go, "hmm."
Read more OffTheBus coverage here.