An analysis of all donations under Jack Abramoff's name or by his wife, Pamela – who donates under "Pam," "Pamela" and "Mrs. Jack Abramoff" – since 1977 and through January 2, 2006, shows that they made a total of $338,418 in political contributions. Of that, $204,000 went to individual political candidates, while $134,000 went to Political Action Committees (PACs).
Of the $204,000 that went to people running for the House and Senate, not one dime went to a Democrat. Yes, that's correct – 100 percent of Abramoff's personal donations went to Republican candidates or, in an extremely isolated case, he gave $750 to Howard Phillips of Virginia to run for something or other on the Constitution Party platform in the mid 1990s.
Other than that, it was all GOP money. Who were the biggest piglets at that trough? Little Tom DeLay picked up a cool $15,000, or over seven percent of the total all by himself...
There's more at Bob's blog, but that's the big thing to remember. This is not a bipartisan scandal. This is the Republicans being caught as the corrupt little piglets they are, every last squealing one of them.
And by the way, to those who say, "well, maybe the Democrats just weren't in power?" First of all, as Bill Sherman said in Pop Culture Gadabout,
Watching members of a political party that only a few years ago was heavily relying on "Character Counts" as its electioneering mantra now trumpeting, "But everybody's doing it!" as an excuse is pretty funny.
Yes it is, Bill. But second of all, dig that timeline. 1977-2006. By my counting, that includes two Democratic Presidential Administrations (or maybe three, if a second term is considered a new Administration). And I think something like 25 years where Democrats controlled the House and/or the Senate.
Times, in other words, when they had power. And Abramoff still didn't give them any money.
This is completely and utterly a Republican scandal.
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