Employees at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup weren’t outraged by the $700 billion bailout in 2008. Everybody else was. It grinds your grits to give those scumsuckers that kind of money. And aside from the question of whether that money kept the economy from slipping into a coma, the fact is that most voters would like to spit on the big banks and the politicians who bestowed all those benjamins on them. Maybe the government got that money back with interest or maybe it really didn’t. Depends on how you figure it. But politically? Especially in Missouri? It’s a no brainer for Robin Carnahan to handcuff Roy Blunt to the bailout.

And that’s exactly what she’s doing in her “Stop the bull” stump speech. She starts by shackling him to his 1999 vote for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that allowed traditional banks to merge with investment houses. When the inevitable result of that law hit the fan nine years later, Roy Blunt was in the forefront, crafting the deal that saved AIG’s and Goldman Sucs’ bacon. He was the lead negotiator for the GOP.

Carnahan sort of doesn’t mention that the Democrats–including Claire–were just as intent on bailing out the banks as the Republicans were. But the implication that she wouldn’t have voted for it is clear. Some of you may approve of that stand; some not. But we’ll all nod our heads vigorously when she berates Blunt for voting against the regulatory reform bill last December; for voting against the bill that required the bailed out banks to prove they were using the money to increase lending to consumers and small businesses; and for voting against capping executive compensation and bonuses at the bailed out companies.

“[Blunt] didn’t just [vote for the bailout], he twisted arms to get other people to bail them out as well. I call that bull. And Congressman Blunt-you might not know this–he sits on the Energy and Commerce Committee. That’s the committee that oversees the oil companies, supposed to investigate what went wrong in the Gulf. Trouble is, he’s one of the top ten recipients of all time of BP money in Congress. He’s taken over a million dollars from oil and gas interests and, of all the people on that committee, he’s taken more money from oil and gas interests than any other member of the committee. So it shouldn’t be a big surprise that he’s stood every step of the way on the side of oil and gas companies. (…)

Congressman Blunt says he’s looking out for us in his fourteen years in Washington. So I ask this question: Why is it you’ve taken more money–listen to this–more money from lobbyists than any other member of Congress? There are 535 members of Congress. USA Today says Congressman Blunt has taken more campaign contributions from them than anybody else. (…)

Lobbyists aren’t the only way these big corporate special interests try to influence politicians. The other way is through PAC contributions, and I’ll tell you that’s another chart where Congressman Blunt comes in at the top.  So when it comes to PAC contributions, he’s the number two recipient in the entire House of Representatives. In PAC contributions, this is the other way. Lobbyists and PAC contributions, that’s how these big interests influence congressmen. And Congressman Blunt is at the top of both of these lists. I think it’s bull.

By the way, it’s not as if Carnahan receives no PAC money. Blunt gets 27% of his contributions from PACs. Carnahan gets 14% of hers that way. No, what’s important to note is which PACs prefer which candidates. And I’ll analyze that in the next posting.

Apologies for almost leaving Carnahan out of the video picture. I was furiously taking notes and didn’t notice that the tripod had been moved.

Rep. Roy Blunt has been taking it on the chin lately about the contributions he’s accepted. USA Today has a chart showing that he has raised more money from lobbyists than any other single legislator. So far this year, he’s taken in more than $310,000. We all know what we all think about a legislator heavily beholden to–yechh–lobbyists. The other media piece tarnishing him is an ad that a group of liberal organizations (The League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, MoveOn, and Americans United for Change) are airing that show the “stain” on his record. He’s taken in a million bucks from Big Oil over the years, so the ad shows his hand dripping oil all over constituents when he shakes a woman’s hand or pats a man’s shoulder or hugs a child.

Under the circumstances, Blunt deserves a certain amount of respect for his response in a televised interview about the ad. He can tap dance with the best of them. Oh, you may think it’s funny that, when asked if he’s taken a million dollars from Big Oil, he basically responds: I don’t know, but Robin Carnahan’s taken $20,000. Laugh if you want, but there’s some merit to his “We’re both whores, but I’m a higher priced one” argument. Oh, oops, he didn’t put it that way. He said that IF there’s anything wrong with taking such money–and there’s not, because he votes according to his conscience, and businesses give him money because they approve of his principles, not because they could ever, heaven forfend, influence his vote–but IF there’s anything wrong with taking money from Big Oil, then Carnahan is guilty as well as he. And besides, his million came in  over fifteen years. It’s not as awful as it sounds. (That works out, by the way, to something  under $67,000 a year, every year for fifteen years or so, which means, to return to the whoring metaphor, that he’s three times as good at it as Carnahan, and has been for a long time.)

Anyway, he adds, the ad is the dirty work of SEIU, ACORN, and the League of Conservation Voters. (Subtext: we all know–even though they had zilch to do with the ad–that you can’t trust the thugs at SEIU or the fraudsters at ACORN. But you can trust me.)

See what I mean? It was a minor masterpiece of sidestepping the question. He was less skillful, though, when interviewed about the USA Today article that revealed his contributions from lobbyists, because he left himself open to the word “lie”. Not that Dave Catanese of KY3 used that word.

When Catanese asked him about the article that said he’d received more lobbyist money than any other candidate, Blunt corrected him. “No, no, they said PAC money.” And he went on at some condescending length about the difference between PAC and lobbyist contributions. In fact, though, the USA Today article was about “lobbyist money.” The word “PAC” was nowhere in there. Catanese took the correction, by the way, mentioning only near the end of his blog about the interview that Blunt “misspoke.”

So he sorta got away with that misrepresentation. Give him credit. Roy Blunt is a skillful talker, especially when interviewers let him steamroll them. In the first video above, he reeled off the Republican talking points about how much cap-and-trade legislation (and he was above calling it “cap-and-tax” as Todd Akin does) would cost Americans. He dwelt on the job loss–and there may well be some–that could result from switching to alternative energy. But job loss and job creation will more or less even out. Only someone who believes, as Blunt does, that “there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth”, would argue that just because China is building coal plants it’s okay for us to continue down that path. If this planet fries, those coal and oil jobs Blunt is so enamored of will go up in smoke with it. And if it fries, it will partly be the fault of willfully ignorant politicians like him convincing gullible Americans that there is no solid evidence of global warming. Only 57 percent of our citizens currently believe that global warming is incontrovertibly real. Last year, 71 percent believed it and three years ago, 87 percent did.

So this business of taking a million bucks from those global warming deniers at Big Oil matters, Roy. Whoring after campaign money is a sin. Whoring after Big Oil money is a mortal sin.