Outliers: Did the GOP tidal wave reach into AMA leadership?

How far did the Republican Party's election night sweep extend? Maybe into the leadership of the American Medical Association.

Two days after the GOP retook control of the U.S. House of Representatives and took a deep cut into the Democrats' Senate majority, the AMA announced that its board and its executive vice president and CEO, Michael Maves, “mutually decided” that Maves will leave his post when his contract expires June 30, 2011.

A search of the Federal Election Commission's website reveals that Maves contributed $1,000 to Barack Obama's campaign in 2008; $2,000 to Al Gore in 1998; and varying amounts to Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dick Durbin, Tom Harkin and Tim Johnson.

But that doesn't necessarily put him at political odds with AMA leadership. According to the FEC, AMA President-elect Peter Carmel gave Obama five contributions totaling $2,000; and $500 and $250 respectively to the presidential campaigns of Dems John Kerry and Bill Richardson. Current AMA President Cecil Wilson has stayed away from presidential politics but has contributed to several GOP candidates, including the Senate campaigns of Bill McCollum and the House campaigns of Thomas Price, William Sublette and David Weldon.

The immediate past president, J. James Rohack, who has faced the brunt of the criticism the AMA received for backing the Democrats' healthcare reform legislation, gave $350 to George W. Bush in 2003, and varying amounts to several GOP candidates including Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Reps. Kevin Brady, Michael Burgess, John Carter, Chet Edwards, Charles Gonzalez and Thomas Price.