A front-page NYT
article talks about a big bump in corporate donations to Democratic campaigns, apparently in an effort to hedge their bets in the event of a change in the Congressional majority.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 -- Corporate America is already thinking beyond Election Day, increasing its share of last-minute donations to Democratic candidates and quietly devising strategies for how to work with Democrats if they win control of Congress.
The shift in political giving, for the first 18 days of October, has not been this pronounced in the final stages of a campaign since 1994, when Republicans swept control of the House for the first time in four decades.
Good news on the face of it, at least in the short run. If big corporations are making significant shifts in their spending, there's probably some risk/benefit analysis behind it. They've seen "The Math" and have concluded it makes sense not to back the same horse all the way.
And while corporate America still pours significantly more cash into GOP coffers, it doesn't seem like they're increasing their contribution
levels. Instead, money they would have thrown to Republican campaigns is going to Democrats instead. A double whammy.
An analysis by The New York Times of contributions from Oct. 1 to 18, the latest data available, shows that donations to Republicans from corporate political action committees dropped by 11 percentage points in favor of Democratic candidates, compared with corporate giving from January through September.
And in another sign that the possibility of a takover is being taken seriously, lobbyists are likewise paying more attention to the Democrats.
One sign of fresh interest in the prospects of Democratic Congressional races came one morning this week when more than 100 lobbyists crowded into Democratic Party headquarters on Capitol Hill. Over Dunkin' Donuts and coffee, the executive director of the party's Congressional committee, Karin Johanson, delivered a private briefing on the race to a sea of unfamiliar faces, despite spending 30 years in politics.
"People are excited," she said later in an interview. "It was, by far, the best attended one ever."
There's one thing I worry about in the longer term though. The good news is that Democrats are benefitting from corporate largesse and getting attention from the K Street crowd. That's also the bad news. If the incoming freshman Democrats don't watch it they could one day be in the same shape as the "Contract with America" crowd is now.
First things first, of course. We won't even be able to have a discussion about the influence of corporations and other special interests on our political process with the gang that's in there now.