Weapon Merchant Donations Not Turned Against Republicans – Yet

Let’s dispense with the formal, polite name for the kind of business that they do. Let’s not call them defense contractors, or military engineers, or homeland security specialists, or even arms dealers. They’re weapon merchants. They make and sell weapons, and sell them to whomever is buying… so far as the law allows, which is pretty far these days.

In the 2006 congressional elections, who do weapon merchants like Lockheed Martin, General Electric, and Raytheon support? These companies are giving the overwhelming majority of their donations to Republicans. Democrats got just 33 percent of donations from weapon merchants made so far in this election cycle. Republicans got 67 percent. (It seems that the Green Party didn’t get any – at least not directly.)

Looking at these numbers, compared to the pattern in campaign donations from weapons merchants from recent years, I get the impression that the weapons merchants are not seeming to flee from the Republicans like rats fleeing from a sinking ship. The numbers show the same pattern, year after year, remarkably like the pattern shown in this year’s congressional campaign donations.

2004: Democrats 37 percent, Republicans 63 percent
2002: Democrats 35 percent, Republicans 65 percent
2000: Democrats 35 percent, Republicans 64 percent

Could it be that the Republicans are going to retain control of Congress after all? Could it be, on the other hand, that the weapons merchants know that the Democrats will not bend to their corrupt persuasions?

Well, that’s one interpretation.

There’s another, not so charitable interpretation: These weapons merchant rats don’t jump a ship until it’s sure to be sunk.

Go back a few years further, and you’ll see the pattern of campaign contributions in 1994, the year of the so-called Republican Revolution, in which the Republicans took Congress away from the Democrats. In 1994, the Democrats got 59 percent of campaign donations from weapons merchants, and the Republicans got just 41 percent. Those numbers are almost the opposite of what we see today.

This history should serve as a warning to Democrats who truly care about matters of war and peace. If the Democrats take back Congress this year, the weapon merchants will switch their allegiance for the next round of elections, and try to buy off the new crop of congressional Democrats.

Will it work? History suggests that it will.

Think back to the 1980s, when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and there was a Republican President. The Democrats voted over and over again in favor of what were record-breaking increases in military spending.

Here’s a suggestion for anti-war progressives: You keep a sharp eye on those Democrats you’re voting in to office this year. You may find that they change Congress less than Congress changes them.