Yesterday Megan Carpentier wrote a post debunking the idea that Wall Street bankers had recently begun switching their allegiances, contributing more to Republicans than Democrats. It was a little complicated, though, so I just skimmed it and then moved on to something else.
But Matt Steinglass was more alert than me and noticed that Carpentier buried the lead:
The amazing part of the article isn’t that some folks on Wall Street might be successful at convincing reporters that they will defund politicians who touch their institutions’ profits or their bonuses. The amazing part is that some folks on Wall Street might think it would be a good idea to convince reporters that they will defund politicians who touch their institutions’ profits or their bonuses. One would think that at a moment of intense public anger against the financial
industry, politicians would find it risky to openly admit that they owe their jobs to campaign contributions from that industry, and would hence be unlikely to vote against financial reform in response to naked threats communicated via the mainstream media. And one would think that finance industry bigwigs would understand that.
This suggests that the finance industry is so confident of its ownership of Congress that it couldn’t care less whether average voters know about it. As for John Boehner’s office apparently leaking to the Wall Street Journal that Mr Boehner had been soliciting contributions from Democratic-leaning finance-industry machers by promising to be more protective of Wall Street’s interests…well, it’s hard to tell who these guys think they’re supposed to be working for.
When you put it that way: yes, it is pretty amazing. As for who these guys think they’re working for, though, I don’t imagine this is something that’s really all that hard to figure out.
