BNSF sponsors Democratic convention but not Republican convention

When I was at the Democratic convention last week, I took note of who the corporate sponsors of the convention were. I assumed -- correctly -- that most of the corporate sponsors of the Democratic convention would also sponsor the Republican convention.

I thought I would catch one of the utilities playing only one side of the fence, because House Democratic Caucus Chairman Jim Dunnam of Waco killed a bill in the closing days of the 2007 legislative session that some of the utilities didn't like. Much to my surprise, almost all of the utilities who sponsored the Democratic convention did an equivilent sponsorship at the GOP gathering. (My apologies to the fine utilities that we have in Texas and the many fine people who work for them.)

Instead, I caught one of the railroads -- the BNSF (formerly Burlington Northern Santa Fe) -- sponsoring the Democratic convention and not the Republican convention. When I asked BNSF for comment, I received the following response from Joseph Faust: "BNSF has sponsored the Republican state convention in the past and will likely do so again in the future. This year we focused on the Democratic state convention in Austin for the first time. BNSF promotes a fair and balanced political process by supporting candidates and events of both major political parties."