Hedging bets: Wall Street funds all top contenders
Regardless of winner, 'will have an indebted friend in the White House'

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Posted: February 06, 2008
11:33 pm Eastern


By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily


Wall Street securities firms and major U.S. banks are hedging their bets in the 2008 presidential election with major campaign contributions to the leading presidential candidates of both the Republican and Democratic parties, according to an analysis by a leading campaign funding watchdog indicates.

"No matter who wins the presidential election this year, Wall Street will have an indebted friend in the White House," Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics told WND.

The center, a non-partisan campaign funding watchdog group, has posted the data on its website, OpenSecrets.org.

The "top contributor" lists shows the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and Mitt Romney have all received contributions from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley.

Credit Suisse is a top contributor to Obama, Romney and McCain but not to Clinton.

"The Wall Street firms and major U.S. banks are all big companies with lots of individual employees who make political campaign contributions for a lot of different ideological persuasions," Ritsch emphasized.

Still, he affirmed the Center for Responsive Politics sees patterns that indicate the Wall Street firms and banks solicit employee contributions.

"We know these firms organize presidential election funding campaigns, because we can track a group of people from a particular firm who give money on the same day to the same candidate," Ritsch said.

"The bundling of individual contributions that goes on in these firms may not be officially sanctioned," he added. "Maybe what's involved is some senior officer or other person who goes around the office to organized campaign contributions to a particular candidate."

Ritsch told WND his group sees this pattern of organized campaign funding going on more within Wall Street firms and banks than elsewhere.

"While campaigns to get employees to make presidential elections campaign contributions may not be officially sanctioned," he said, "we know bundling happens, and we see it going on more frequently at the Wall Street banks."

Ritsch added that 90 percent of campaign contributions tend to come from individuals.

The Center for Responsive Politics is able to determine which employers are involved in patterns of campaign contributions by analyzing the forms individual contributors are required to file with the Federal Election Commission.

"Anybody giving $200 or more to a particular candidate has to disclose to the FEC their place of employment," Ritsch noted, "regardless of whether the $200 is contributed in a one-time contribution or in a series of smaller contributions."

Goldman Sachs is the leading Wall Street contributor to the top candidates, ranking No. 1 on Clinton's list, with donations totaling $470,150. The firm also tops Obama's list with $421,763, Romney's with $223,925 and ranks No. 5 on McCain's list, with $85,252.

An analysis posted on the OpenSecrets.org websiteindicates the 2008 presidential campaign is on track to be the most expensive in history.

Lawyers and law firms have contributed to presidential candidates more than any other industry, totaling at least $46.6 million to the candidates in 2007, with Democrats receiving 77 percent of the total.

Clinton is the top recipient among all candidates of campaign contributions from lawyers and law firms, as well as from the securities and investment industries.

A "Money Web" social networking tool on OpenSecrets.orgallows users to focus on a particular contributor and see the network of other candidates he or she is supporting.


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