The
Republicans keep telling us that the Abramoff bribe-and-fraud scandal
is a bipartisan one. Oh sure, they say, Abramoff personally didn't
donate one nickel to the Dems, but his Indian clients gave them hundreds
of thousands of dollars. That they did. And how much money did these
Indians give to the GOP?
From the direction of the woods, a lone cricket chirped.
That's all right. On behalf of The American Prospect, the campaign finance firm Dwight L. Morris & Associates produced a revealing analysis of seven of Abramoff's clients' donations. The link has the tribe-by-tribe breakdown, but here are the most important figures:
*
From 1991 to September 1999 -- before Abramoff began representing them
-- the seven tribes in the Morris study donated $868,890 to the
Democratic Party.
* During that same time frame, the tribes donated $786,560 to the Republican Party.
* From September 1999 into 2003, the seven Abramoff clients gave $794,483 to Democrats.
* During that same time frame, the clients donated $1,845,975 to the GOP.
So,
in the pre-Abramoff period, 52.5% of the tribes' donations went to
Democrats -- a five-point margin. After Abramoff became the tribes'
lobbyist, 70% of their donations went to Republicans -- a forty-point difference.
Conclusion: Everything was fine, dandy, and bipartisan until Jack Abramoff entered the picture.
There goes another chunk of the GOP's ever-dwindling credibility. Bye-bye now...
