MONEY SOURCES

Top three individual donors to independent 527 political groups from Ohio: Peter B. Lewis, Cleveland: $23.1 million to pro-Kerry groups. Carl Lindner, Cincinnati: $1.9 million to pro-Bush groups. Richard Rosenthal, Cincinnati: $1 million to pro-Kerry groups. Top metro areas in the state for Bush donations: 1. Cincinnati, $2.967 million. 2. Cleveland, $1.238 million. 3. Columbus, $1.237 million. Top metro areas in the state for Kerry donations: 1. Cleveland, $1.021 million. 2. Cincinnati, $673,000. 3. Columbus, $657,000. To find out who gave from your neighborhood, go to www.fundrace.org. You can also go to www.opensecrets.org and click on the Get Local! tab and follow prompts. Sources: GNS analysis. Center for Public Integrity, Center for Responsive Politics.

Residents of the 15-county Cincinnati metro area have opened their wallets for this race as never before.

By one estimate, donations from the metro area to the presidential campaigns are running at nearly four times what they did in 2000.

"I think it's for the same reason that the signs are getting yanked out of the ground on both sides," said George Moeller, a Hyde Park lawyer who has donated $750 to the Kerry campaign and the Democratic party.

"It's the same reason people can't talk about politics at parties anymore. Between 9/11 and this war in Iraq, people are completely polarized and putting their money where their mouth is."

Republican donor Tom Tepe, who gave $250 to President Bush's campaign, likened this election to that of 1864, when Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, faced a challenge from Democratic Gen. George McClellan.

"I think this country has to examine itself and to see whether or not we have the guts, the intestine, the fortitude, the true grit, to face the big issues," said Tepe, 59, of Indian Hill. "Are we going to simply let these outlaws run herd on us? I'm not willing to let that happen."

This will be the most expensive presidential race in history, costing about $1.2 billion, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Tristate has played a major role in that money race in several ways:

• A Gannett News Service analysis found $8.3 million in donations from Tristate ZIP codes. That includes donations to both presidential campaigns, the national political parties and independent groups working to elect either Bush or Kerry.

And that was as of Aug. 30. The final tally could come close to $9 million, which doesn't include thousands of donations under $200 to the political parties.

• Bush's fund-raising operation has been headed by Mercer Reynolds, a longtime friend and Indian Hill resident who helped create a network of 15 local Pioneers and Rangers. That's about four times as many as would be expected based simply on population. Pioneers have raised between $100,000 and $200,000 for the Bush campaign. Rangers raise at least $200,000.

• The Indian Hill ZIP Code, 45243, is the fourth-most lucrative in the country for President Bush. And that's out of more than 40,000 ZIP codes. It has supplied almost $750,000. No Ohio ZIP codes make the top 10 for John Kerry.

Indian Hill is such an important area for President Bush that it provided more money than the next three ZIP codes combined. And it provided more than Kerry's top 10 Ohio ZIPs combined.

The top Cincinnati-area ZIP code for Kerry is 45208, which is Hyde Park and Mount Lookout. But the $36,000 it sent to the Kerry campaign would rank it almost 50th in the state for Bush.

• The Fort Mitchell (41017) ZIP code in Northern Kentucky supplied $131,055 to Bush, topped only by a Louisville ZIP code. The same Fort Mitchell ZIP code gave $8,820 to Kerry.

• A separate Center for Responsive Politics analysis found that donations to the presidential campaign funds from the Tristate alone have almost quadrupled from 2000.

Four years ago, residents here donated about $941,000 to the Bush and Gore campaigns. This time, they've donated $3.6 million to the Bush and Kerry campaigns, as of Oct. 4.

That's partly because new campaign finance laws doubled the maximum amount that individuals are allowed to donate - from $1,000 to $2,000. But that only accounts for half the increase.

Among new donors from the Tristate was Jack Buescher of Glendale, who listed his occupation as "downsized/retired" on his donation form to the Democratic National Committee.

"We'd never been involved in politics," said Buescher, 62, who was laid off by General Electric in 1994 and later worked several other jobs before retiring.

Buescher said he was angered by Bush's refusal to heed warnings about al-Qaida, by the trumping up of evidence to push the invasion of Iraq and by Bush's use of gay marriage as a wedge issue.

"He's ignorant and proud," Buescher said of Bush. "I must thank Mr. Bush for energizing me and others like me who haven't been active enough in the past."

Suzanne Hagedorn, 60, a retired physician from Winton Place, said she stepped up her donations this year to Bush and the GOP because the election is so important and the choice so clear.

"I am very afraid of Kerry's attachment to the United Nations and his desire to get allegiance from other countries," she said. "I'm afraid of the U.N. I think they're corrupt and I think they hate us."

Donations to political parties from the Tristate actually fell, the result of campaign finance laws that barred unlimited donations to political parties.

But big local donors such as Carl Lindner and Richard Farmer simply found new places to put their money - so-called "527" groups, named for the section of the tax code that created them.

They were not a factor in the 2000 race, but this year those groups - including Progress for America, America Coming Together and the Media Fund - are airing many of the political ads seen in the region and paying the people knocking on doors. The total donated to such independent groups from the Tristate: about $3 million.

Lindner alone accounts for $1.9 million, much of it to the pro-Bush Progress for America - the group behind the "hug" TV ad featuring Mason's Ashley Faulkner. Developer Robert Rhein and Cintas founder Farmer donated $100,000 each to the same group.

Richard Rosenthal donated $1 million to pro-Kerry groups. And two Cincinnati women even formed their own 527 - the only such group based in the Tristate - called Women of Ohio.

E-mail cweiser@gannett.com. Contributing: Robert Benincasa, Gannett News Service.