Bundlers for McCain, Obama Are Among Wall Street's Tumblers
Published by Massie Ritsch on September 18, 2008

How did Wall Street's largest firms also become some of the largest donors to John McCain and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns? Take a look at the candidates' rosters of bundlers on OpenSecrets.org, and it becomes clear.


McCain's list includes at least 69 individuals who, according to his campaign, have raised a total of at least $11.4 million for his campaign. That makes the struggling investment industry his top source of bundlers. (Bundlers are those wealthy individuals who hit up their coworkers, family and friends to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, in addition to any contributions from their own pockets.) In the second spot is the real estate industry, where at least 55 individuals have delivered a total of $9.5 million or more to McCain. Overall, bundlers in the finance, insurance and real estate sector have hauled in at least $30 million for the Republican candidate -- far more than any other sector.



Obama's list gives the appearance that he has not leaned so heavily on bundlers working on Wall Street, although since his campaign has ignored repeated requests from the Center for Responsive Politics and other watchdog groups to disclose his bundlers' employers and occupations, these figures are probably undercounts. The securities and investment industry is Obama's second-largest source of bundlers, after lawyers, and at least 56 individuals have raised at least $8.9 million for his campaign. Bundlers in the larger finance, insurance and real estate sector have collected at least $13.4 million for Obama, making it his most generous sector.



Bundlers for the McCain campaign include Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, who is listed as raising at least half a million dollars. That may help explain why Merrill Lynch's employees have made the firm McCain's biggest donor -- when the boss is giving, others follow suit. McCain's bundles have also come in from executives at Lehman Brothers, the firm formerly known as Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse and Wachovia. Former senator Phil Gramm, an executive at UBS, and Geoffrey Boisi, a board member for rescued mortgage buyer Freddie Mac, have both reportedly raised between $100,000 and $250,000 for McCain.



Obama's list of bundlers includes several executives at Citigroup, who together have raised between $600,000 and $1.5 million. Executives at Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs (Obama's number-one donor) are also in the mix.



Overall, the securities and investment industry has contributed about $10 million to Obama and $7 million to McCain. To all federal candidates for president and Congress, and to political parties, the industry has contributed more than $101 million in the 2008 election cycle, 56 percent of it to Democrats. The Democrats' edge is a relatively recent development, however; Republicans had the advantage for most of the last 10 years.



Contributions from the commercial banking industry are roughly split between Obama and McCain -- $2 million for the Democrat, $1.9 million for the Republican. The banking industry has contributed about $25 million in this election cycle to federal candidates and parties, giving 52 percent to Republicans.


www.opensecrets.org/news/200...-are.html

Oh I realize that Obama doesn't have much choice but to play politics and he's a politician. However the bailout really seems like throwing good money after bad considering how it seems to be put together and not really something that will do much over the longterm (and only do a little in the short term and only for the already rich). It's just going to delay the inevitable (but it may give the rest of the world the opportunity to shift the global economy so that it's not dependent upon the dollar) and make the rich even richer and the poor even poorer - this IS Bush/Rove/Cheney stealing the last food out of the American larder before moving on. Essentially most US citizens will become indentured servants of the government who work to service debt because their taxes have been given (before they're even collected) to the corporations (and the few people who get insanely rich off of them) who have already siphoned all the available (and prospective income) from individual citizens. A bailout that actually supported citizens not corporations (and corporate execs who knew what they were doing and figured they could count on their buddy Paulson who got rid of the pesky regulations in the first place to trade in their vanishing speculative profits for cold hard cash from the government. It really was quite an elegant shell game if one looks at the progression from the changing of the regulations in 2004 to today. What could have been done, and if Obama was truly interested in serving the people and being the change he sells himself as, he could have promoted a bill that helped citizens more and said that if there was going to be corporate welfare by golly there'd be help for the people too and the corporate welfare would be managed with an iron fist and strong oversight - the corporations would have hated him but it would have been the start of real banking reform and a government that collected taxes from the people to serve the people not just pay off their buddies who hardly pay any taxes. Yes, I understand it's politics but it seems to indicate more of the same in the future (in both terms of corporate pandering and more economic problems due to shoddy and non-reality based money "management), which doesn't bode well no matter who gets elected in the US. It also means the real problems won't get looked at or resolved and this cycle will continue with ever diminishing returns. People should panic if they're invested in futures that don't exist, we've come to the end of the myth of infinite expansion and growth - all the wars in China won't change that or create good lives for people around the world.