Tribes donated to Dem's BEFORE Abramoff.

The only "connection" between Abramoff and Dem's is that some of the tribes that were Abramoff clients donated to Dem's in Congress.

BUT, Indian Tribes have ALWAYS donated to Dems':
The 1994 gubernatorial election saw significant Indian tribal involvement. The tribes contributed more than $1.5 million to the Democratic party in order to support a gubernatorial candidate who they believed would be more receptive to their gaming efforts.4 Their gubernatorial involvement was part of a larger effort to elect officeholders who would be friendly to their interests. Tribal contributions made to Democrats went from $33,000 in 1992-1993 to $2.4 million in 1994-95. The tribes donated $740,000 to the Umberg campaign for attorney general alone. However, they have also begun to increase their contributions to Republicans.
http://www.library.ca.gov/CRB/97/03/Chapt10.html

Now, Abramoff started as a lobbyist in 1995. He only signed up one Tribe as a client in 1995, the Miss. Choctaw.

Thanks.

since the article says they later started giving to Repubs.

The only breakdown I could find was for 1996, in which 87% of donations from Gaming donors went to Dems (Abramoff's clients, the Choctaws, only gave 45k of the 1.2 mil in soft money, and only $500 i hard money). Unfortunately, non-gaming Tribal donors gave 60% to Repub's and only 39% to Dem's. That doesn't look too good.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/cashingin_gaming/gaming3.htm

But, it does show that gaming Tribes were long-term contributers to Dem's and probably had nothing to do with Abramoff.

Are you really telling me you believe Byron Dorgan and Tom Delay are the same????

For one thing, Dorgan gave back his contributions, didn't he? Just to make sure it didn't even look like he might have been involved.

But, the WaPo and others have been trying to make it look like just as many (or more) Dem's were involved as Repub's. As I stated, the ONLY connection between Abramoff and Dem's was that some of the tribes that donated to Dem's also happened to be clients of Abramoff.

Now, if it turns out any Dems' were guilty, I think they should go down with the Repub's. BUT, my position is that there is no evidence that these "connections" were anything but coinicidental, whereas Abramoff had DIRECT ties and connections to the Repukes.

Got it?

How about you just stick with this, "my position is that there is no evidence that these "connections" were anything but coinicidental, whereas Abramoff had DIRECT ties and connections to the Repukes." And dispense with even an utterance of Dem guilt until somebody is charged.

of people. They probably donate to Pukes because Pukes have to be paid to stand of for the rights of people.

Some people around here just make me want to pull my hair out. If they can't see the difference between Tom Delay and Byron friggin' Dorgan for chrissake, then just get the fuck out of my face because I want nothing to do with their stupid asses.

certainly I can see the difference, but I like destroying RW Talking Points, like the one Abramoff Scandal affects Dem's just as much as Repuke's.

Just letting off steam about some other threads and this seemed like a better place to do it, I was concurring with you, in my own weird way.