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Wall Street slightly favors Democrats -- so the GOP must be in the tank for banks
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
03/03/10 12:25 PM EST
Imagine you write about the intersection of business and government. Say the campaign finance numbers come in for 2009 at the Center for Responsive Politics. They show that the Securities and Investment Industry, Wall Street, gave 63% of its money to Democrats, improving on the Democrats' majorities from the 2006 and 2008 cycle when Wall Street gave Dems 52% and 57% of campaign cash. In fact, the numbers for the 2010 cycle so far are the most one-sided numbers we've seen from Wall Street as far back as records go.
As gravy, say the top three Wall Street recipients are all Democrats, and 8 of the top 10 are Democrats. And this is all amid harsh Democratic rhetoric aimed at Wall Street "Fat Cats."
What story would you write?
If you're the Washington Post, the story here is that "Commercial banks and high-flying investment firms have shifted their political contributions toward Republicans in recent months."
This story, by Dan Eggen and Tomoeh Murakami Tse, fits nicely into the Democratic theme that Republicans are the party of the Fat Cats, and Democrats are their scourge. The story, however, doesn't fit the facts. If the long-term trend shows Democrats increasingly cozy to Wall Street, write the story about the last three months -- even if those three months showed a dramatic downturn in total giving, making them the least-significant quarter of the year.
Jonah Goldberg expertly dismantles this theme in a USA Today column:
Except there's one datum, mentioned but not explored in the article that doesn't quite fit this story line: Wall Street is still giving more money to the Democrats. "The wealthy securities and investment industry ... went from giving 2 to 1 to Democrats at the start of 2009 to providing almost half of its donations to Republicans by the end of the year," the Post reports.
Almost half. That's another way of saying that the allegedly vindictive Wall Street fat cats are still giving more than half of their political donations to Democrats, also known as the party in power.
I should add, that like Goldberg, I believe the GOP leadership -- like the Democratic leadership -- is far too friendly to Wall Street.
More from Timothy P. Carney
- When your lobbying is so clearly self-interested, maybe you should be more subtle
- How GOP can trump Dems on special interests
- Calling bull on Biden's pretend war against 'corporate interests'
- Are big hotels using the tax code to hurt Priceline, Expedia
- Another way in which government creates housing bubbles
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