Here's a delightful little breakdown of a Bush smear.
On the front page of the GeorgeWBush.com website, we see "John Kerry is the number one Senate recipient of banker donations over the past 15 years."
Boy, that looks bad! And inside, it gets even worse:
"John Kerry is the number one Senate recipient of banker donations over the past 15 years, and his attacks today are completely hypocritical. This is another example of Kerry's willingness to say one thing and do another. If John Kerry really cared about bank customers, he wouldn't have skipped the vote on the fair credit legislation that the President signed to ensure fair treatment of credit applicants and to prevent identity theft."
-Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney '04 Spokesman
Note that this is no 527 smear - this is straight from the campaign itself!
And there's more...
Kerry And The Banking Industry:
Since 1989, Kerry Has Raised $1,108,428 From Commercial Banking Employees, More Than Any Senator In That Time Period. (Center For Responsive Politics Website, www.opensecrets.org, Accessed 8/26/04)
Kerry's Presidential Campaign Has Raised $758,623 From Commercial Banking Employees, More Than Any Senator This Cycle. (Center For Responsive Politics Website, www.opensecrets.org, Accessed 8/26/04)
They get those numbers from
OpenSecrets.org. Here's their list of the top recipients in the Senate for 1989-2004:
1 Kerry, John (D-MA)............$1,242,987
2 Schumer, Charles E (D-NY).....$1,019,524
3 Gramm, Phil (R-TX)............$837,053
4 Shelby, Richard C (R-AL)......$804,222
5 Hutchison, Kay Bailey (R-TX)..$566,406
Indeed, Kerry is #1. But... does that mean that the banks have been throwing money at him for 15 years? Um... no. In 2000, he got a piddling $22,000 from the banks. So.... how much do the banks give senators who are
presidential candidates?. Let's look at the top recipients for the 2004 cycle.... and let's make it "all recipients", not just senators.
1 Bush, George W (R)............$2,834,869
2 Kerry, John (D)...............$891,932
3 Shelby, Richard C (R-AL)......$312,273
4 Schumer, Charles E (D-NY).....$241,050
5 Oxley, Michael G (R-OH).......$191,800
Hm. Look who turns out to be the #1 recipient... But it gets better. let's look at the overall numbers for 2000, the year Kerry got $22k.
1 Bush, George W (R)....$1,340,781
2 Lazio, Rick A (R-NY)..$452,846
3 Bradley, Bill (D).....$397,925
4 Gore, Al (D)..........$293,750
5 Schumer, Charles E....$268,650
Dubya wins again! In fact, Dubya took in more in his 2000 preznit race than Kerry has taken in over his entire career!
Detecting a pattern here? Let's look at 1992...
1 Bush, George (R)......$501,665
2 Clinton, Bill (D).....$199,552
That's right... Dubya's dad took in more for that race than Kerry did in 14 years. There aren't numbers available for 1988, but do you really doubt that the name "Bush" was on top of the list then, too?
Okay, now for the really fun part! These "Banker Donations" - they aren't corporate donations from the Commercial Banks themselves - they're donations from
bank employees! Which could be a corporate president maxing out, or a teller giving $25. No way of telling.
And finally, about that missed vote for the FACT Act, which cleary is supposed to scream out that Kerry doesn't care about the little people... Was it a nail-biter? Should Kerry have rushed back to Washinton to make extra-sure it passed?
Um... no. The vote was 95 to 2 in favor.