A little number crunching turns up a few surprises, like the fact that conservative broadcasting magnate Stanley Hubbard has so far given more to Senator Amy Klobuchar than he has to Norm Coleman. Or that Cargill MacMillan Jr.–heir to the Cargill fortune and roughly seven billion dollars wealthier than you–has given next to nothing: a thousand bucks each to Norm Coleman, John McCain and a Republican Congresswoman from California.

Shed no tears for Coleman–he’s received $24,700 in individual donations from Minnesota’s Forbes-listers, more than any other candidate.

Here’s how each Minnesotan ranked on the Forbes list, how much they’ve been giving, and to whom.

No. 42a, Whitney MacMillan

Cargill heirs Whitney MacMillan and Cargill MacMillan Jr. are tied for the distinction of richest Minnesotan (and 42nd richest American).

Born in 1929, Whitney MacMillan ran Cargill from 1976-1995 and was the last Cargill/MacMillan family member to head the company. Here’s what his political spending looks like:

$6,200 to Norm Coleman
$3,300 to Erik Paulsen
$4,400 to the Republican Party of Minnesota
$4,600 to Brian Davis
$2,000 to Michele Bachmann
$1,000 to John Kline
$250 to Rod Grams

MacMillan also sent $1,000 each to Republican Senators in Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Total contributions: $25,750

No. 42b, Cargill MacMillan Jr.

Cargill MacMillan Jr. must not get as many party invitations as Whitney. There are just three contributions on record this cycle for the heir who saw his massive wealth double in the last year.

$1,000 to Norm Coleman
$1,000 to John McCain
$1,000 to Mary Bono Mack (R, CA)

Total contributions: $3,000

No. 102, Carl Pohlad

Carl Pohlad once told the Star Tribune: “All I wanted in life was to make a $100 a week and have two suits of clothes–one for summer and one for winter.” Notoriously frugal, Pohlad doesn’t throw much into politics. But he did earn himself the distinction as the only rich person on this list to give a large contribution to Barack Obama. And his donation to the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s office was mostly a contribution to the Democratic party. Of the $273,000 the office has contributed so far in this election cycle, 62% of that green turned blue. Still, he gave up $5,600 to the other side, with a sizable chunk of change going to the Norm Coleman-affiliated Northstar Leadership PAC.

$9,200 to Barack Obama
$5,000 to the Northstar Leadership PAC
$5,000 to MLB Commissioner’s Office
$600 to Norm Coleman

Total contributions: $19,800

No. 105, Richard Schulze

Best Buy founder Richard Schulze is sitting on $3.5 billion dollars and put most of his recent political contributions into the U.S. Senate race. Norm Coleman got $2,600 but Mike Ciresi, a one-time contender for Coleman’s seat, got $2,300.

$2,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 Mike Ciresi
$1,100 to the Republican National Committee
$1,000 to Jim Ramstad

Total contributions: $7,000

No. 123, Glen Taylor

So long as you are a Republican, Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor is a generous man. If you are the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Taylor is exceedingly generous–$45,000 generous. Here is a man who wants a Republican-controlled Senate and is willing to pay for it.

$45,700 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$7,200 to the Republican Party of Minnesota
$4,600 to John McCain
$3,100 to Norm Coleman
$2,000 to Michele Bachmann
$1,000 to Brian Davis
$1,000 to Erik Paulsen
$1,000 to John Kline
$200 to the Republican National Committee

Total contributions: $65,800

No. 163, Mary Janet Cargill

Mary Janet Cargill apparently does not like to get her money mixed up in politics. She contributed to no campaign for national office. She supported no party. Fair enough, with $2.5 billion who needs politicians? Wait.

No. 281a, Barbara Carlson Gage

Locked in a $1.7 billion three-way tie for least-rich richest Minnesotans (the 281 slot on Forbes’ list) are Barbara Carlson Gage, Mary Carlson Nelson, and Stanley Hubbard.

When she’s not christening ships, Barbara Carlson Gage is–truth is I don’t know what she’s doing. But here’s who she’s been giving to:

$4,600 to John McCain
$2,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 to Rudy Giuliani
$1,000 to Jim Ramstad
$500 to Brack Obama
$500 to Amy Klobuchar

Total contributions: $10,500

No. 281b, Marilyn Carlson Nelson

With just a few exceptions, the Carlson sisters’ money runs red. Here are Carlson Co. CEO Marilyn Carlson Nelson’s contributions for the current election cycle:

$8,110 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$6,900 to John McCain
$3,600 to Norm Coleman
$2,300 to Rudy Guiliani
$2,300 to Mike Ciresi
$360 to Elizabeth Dole

Total contributions: $21,270

No. 281c, Stanley S. Hubbard

Conservative broadcasting magnate Stanley Hubbard seems to be having the most fun of the bunch. He’s given overwhelmingly to the Republican cause, with a few notable exceptions. He gave $5,000 to Norm Coleman but $5,100 to staunch Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, who isn’t even facing re-election. He gave $2,300 to Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney (before backing McCain) but he gave the same contribution to one-time Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson of New Mexico, where Hubbard owns four NBC affiliates.

$19,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee
$10,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee
$10,000 to the Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico
$4,600 to Michele Bachmann
$6,600 to Erik Paulsen
$6,600 to Dick Day
$5,100 to Amy Klobuchar
$5,000 to Norm Coleman
$5,000 to the Freedom & Security PAC
$5,000 to the National Association of Broadcasters
$5,000 to Northstar Leadership PAC
$5,000 to the Great Plains Leadership Fund
$4,600 to John McCain
$4,600 to John Kline
$2,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
$3,300 to Rudy Giuliani
$2,300 to Mitt Romney
$2,300 to Bill Richardson
$2,300 to Mike Ciresi
$1,300 to Pete Domenici
$1,000 to John Thune (R, SD)
$1,000 to Bob Schaffer (R, CO)
$1,000 to Terri Bonoff
$500 to Vito Fossella (R, NY)
$200 to the Republican Central Committee of South Dakota

Total contributions: $113,800

For more: Read “The Crunch,” Paul Demko’s ongoing multi-part series on Minnesota’s top-100 political contributors.

Vance Opperman has been a major player in Democratic politics in Minnesota for four decades. In 1968, after helping lead opposition to the Vietnam War in Minneapolis, he was elected chair of the Hennepin County DFL. The recent law school graduate was just 25 years old.

Opperman went on to found a highly successful law firm, McGovern, Opperman & Paquin, amassing millions in the process. In 1991 the National Law Journal named him one of the 100 most influential attorneys in the country. But the majority of Opperman’s fortune came from the 1996 sale of West Publishing, the legal publishing behemoth, to the Canadian firm Thompson Corp. for $3.4 billion.

His success translated into huge amounts of cash for Democratic candidates and causes. In 1995 and 1996, Opperman and his wife Darin gave the Democrats at least $350,000 to bolster the re-election prospects of President Clinton. A 1998 City Pages cover story referred to Opperman as “the most powerful man you’ve never heard of.”

“When I was growing up, service in public office was a high honor,” Opperman told reporter Britt Robson at the time. “And people said, ‘I am giving up something of my life to give to the community. I have chosen this as a public service.’ And they meant it when they said that, and I think other people believed it.

“Now, you have to be crazy to run for office, and if you do, most of your neighbors immediately assume you are a crook. And that should make all of us a little bit sad.”

Opperman’s apparent disgust with the cynicism of modern politics, however, has not dissuaded him from continuing to play an outsized role in DFL campaigns in the ensuing years. According to a 2003 report by the Institute on Money in State Politics, he contributed $243,640 to Democratic Party committees between 1998 and 2002 — making him the second largest political donor in the state during that time period. So far this election cycle, Opperman and his wife Darin have contributed $46,000 to federal Democratic candidates and causes, placing the couple in 27th place on the list of Minnesota’s most generous political patrons.

The top 100 givers in the state have made $4.1 million in federal political contributions since the beginning of 2007, or more than $40,000 per household. Republican donors have cut checks for $2.3 million, while their Democratic counterparts have handed out $1.8 million. To get a better understanding of the state’s most generous political patrons, the Minnesota Independent commissioned a study by the Center for Responsive Politics looking at the top 100 contributors.

In the first four installments of this series we looked at the bottom seventy members of the list, those contributing between $23,000 and $44,000. Today we examine places 21 through 30. Donors on this section of the list contributed a total of $477,523 to federal political candidates and causes during the first 18 months of this election cycle. Republican contributors dominated this section of the list, with the GOP getting roughly 70 percent of their donations.

Robert Cummins is in many ways Opperman’s GOP counterpart. He has long been one of the most conspicuous GOP rainmakers in the state. The notoriously media-shy CEO of Plymouth-based Primera Technology has helped pad the coffers of groups across the conservative landscape. He’s given more than $300,000 directly to the state Republican party in the last decade and is a key donor to influential advocacy groups like the Taxpayer’s League of Minnesota and the Freedom Club PAC, which he helped found a decade ago.

Cummins has also been the leading financial backer of efforts to ban gay marriage in Minnesota. In recent years he has contributed more than $400,000 to Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage and Minnesotans for Marriage. Both organizations have advocated for a Constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex unions.

In the first 18 months of this election cycle, Robert Cummins and his wife Joan have contributed $53,600 to federal GOP candidates and causes, placing them 21st on the list of Minnesota’s top political patrons. They’ve both written checks to all credible Republican Congressional contenders, including maximum $4,600 contributions from each of them to Sen. Norm Coleman. The couple have also chipped in $20,000 to the state GOP’s coffers this election cycle.

Another name on the GOP side of the ledger that’s no surprise is Glen Taylor. The Minnesota Timberwolves owner grew up on a farm in Comfrey, Minnesota. In 1975 he purchased a Mankato printing business that he’d worked at since graduating from college and transformed it into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise known as Taylor Corporation. Earlier this month Forbes estimated his current wealth at $3.3 billion. The Mankato businessman served as a Republican state senator from 1980 to 1986, rising to the post of Minority Leader.

Taylor and his wife Becky have contributed at least $48,900 to federal GOP candidates and causes so far this election cycle. That total includes $17,200 for the state GOP.

Taylor is not the only prominent Minnesota businessman writing big checks to Republican candidates. John Goodman, CEO of the Goodman Group, a Chaska-based development firm that specializes in building nursing homes and retirement communities, clocks in at 25th on the list. The Goodman household has doled out $48,150 so far this election cycle, almost exclusively to Republicans. The one exception? A $2,300 contribution to state senator Terri Bonoff, who unsuccessfully sought the DFL endorsement earlier this year in the Third Congressional District.

In 2002 Mark Davis expressed his disgust at electoral politics in an interview with Connect Business Magazine. “I am losing faith in our political system and political parties,” he said. “Now that our society has dug itself into thinking government can solve its problems, it will be hard for us to dig our way out.” But this lack of faith in government hasn’t stopped the president of Le Sueur-based dairy products company Davisco Foods International from giving generously to Republican politicians. Davis and his wife Mary have doled out at least $46,200 to GOP candidates since the beginning of 2007.

Despite the preponderance of Republican donors on this section of the list, one other Democratic name pops out: Mike Ciresi. The attorney gained notoriety for helping negotiate the state’s $6 billion settlement with tobacco companies in 1998. He has twice run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, most recently seeking this year’s DFL endorsement to take on Coleman. Ciresi and his wife Ann have given $45,273 to DFL candidates so far this election cycle, including donations to every Minnesota Congressional contender except for Collin Peterson.

Here’s the complete list of donors occupying slots 21 through 30:

21. Robert and Joan Cummins, Deephaven, Primera Technology, $53,600

22. Tim Owens, Wayzata, Voyageur Financial Services, $50,550

23. Daniel J. Starks, St. Paul, no employer listed, $49,100

24. Glen and Becky Taylor, Mankato, Taylor Corp., $48,900

25. John and Sidney Goodman, Minnetonka, Goodman Group, $48,150

26. Mark and Mary Davis, Saint Peter, Davisco Foods International, $46,200

27. Vance and Darin Opperman, Minneapolis, Key Investment, $46,000

28. Bruce Dayton, Wayzata, retired, $45,400

29. Mike and Ann Ciresi, Mendota Heights, Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, $45,273

30. John and Mary Wren, Stillwater, Lakeville Motor Express, $44,350

Previously in The Crunch:

Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 31 to 40

Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 41 to 50
Minnesota’s top 100 political givers: 51 to 75
Minnesota’s Top 100 political givers: 76 to 100