In 2010, there is one Democrat that is turning heads with the amount of money he is raising. That is Chuck Schumer of New York. While chatter is running rampant in D.C. that he is seeking to be the next leader of the Senate Democrats should Reid lose his race in Nevada, Schumer is acting as a pass through for millions of dollars from Wall Street and distributing it around the nation to other Democrat campaigns.
According to OpenSecrets.org, Chuck Schumer has received nearly $2.5 million alone from the securities and investment industries. Furthermore, Schumer’s number one contributor over this cycle has been Paulson & Co., a controversial hedge fund run by John Paulson who was at the center of the Goldman Sachs indictment that concluded with Goldman paying a $550 million fine to the SEC.
What is Schumer doing with all the Wall Street money?
Schumer is taking the money from Wall Street and acting as a pass through for Democrat campaigns across the nation. While it is currently popular for Democrats to distance themselves from Wall Street money, they can use political donations from Schumer to shield themselves from Wall Street itself.
According to The Hill:
Schumer’s campaign also gave $25,000 to the Alaska Democratic Party, $50,000 to the Colorado Democratic Party, $50,000 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and $50,000 to the Washington State Democratic Party, according to a report filed Wednesday.
The contributions were all made at the end of September and will help incumbents in tough races such as Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Patty Murray (D-Was.).
It is probably a safe bet that Bennet, Feingold and Murray are not expressing love for Wall Street on the campaign trail, but they certainly do appreciate the desperately needed cash via Schumer.
For instance, after watching the below speech from Patty Murray, would one expect her to accept campaign donations from them? She says they “gambled” other people’s money, but isn’t it also a “gamble” to donate to a political campaign?
If you want to see more from Murray about how greedy special interests from Wall Street are stopping reform, click here.
And what about Russ Feingold? Surely he would not want to use Wall Street funds in his campaign. After all, as Feingold himself wrote in an op-ed, “I side with Wisconsin over Wall Street every time.” He’d probably return the Schumer money if he felt so strongly… We’re not holding our breath on that one.
Hypocrisy can always be found on the campaign trail. It’s sad that our politicians are not more honest with us when it is so easy to discover their blatant double talk.
