Dean: No Democrat Received Jack Abramoff Money
Jack Abramoff Money: Oh, I Beg To Disagree

Dean.

Reality.

Not quite in congruence.

The Democratic spin is that no Democrat received Abramoff's personal political donations, and that he's personally a Republcian. Well, yeah, and? Those come in scary-huge sizes of $1000 or $2000 per election cycle. And so he supported, with his personal donations, candidates whose policies he agreed with.

But a lobbyist does not lobby -- or bribe -- Congressmen by passing out his own money. See, were that the case, lobbyists would be bankrupted in a relatively short period of time. And it wouldn't be a lucrative job-- quite the opposite.

Lobbyists funnel money from interested parties to politicians in order to advance their clients' business interests, not their own personal political preferences.

And Abramoff's money-- the money from his clients, from his lobbying firm's accounts, from the affiliated organizations he controlled -- went to Democrats in large amounts. The Democratic national senatorial committee, for example, received 97% of the money the Republican senatorial campaign committee did.

So, when Howard Dean trots out his talking point about no Democrats ever receiving Abramoff's money, bear in mind that is a small amount of Abramoff's personal funds he's talking about, not the millions that he took from Indian casino interests to buy off polticians in payments of $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 or more at a shot.

posted by Ace at 11:52 PM

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