Drawing Conclusions

Jon Chait hits the nail on the head here based on this WaPo story that corporate donations are going to the Republicans.  The theory is that "the smart money" is on the GOP retaking control of Congress in 2010, judging by the corporate PACs.

Chait draws the more correct conclusion.

Huh. "Industry-friendly"? The article puzzles over the fact that the drug industry has been strongly favoring the GOP despite its support for a law Democrats enacted. It's really not much of a mystery. The industry gives to Republicans because they agree with Republicans and realize that republicans will do more to advance their interests. But they realize that they can't keep Democrats out of power all the time, and they need to mitigate the damage Democrats do to them when the Democrats are in power. They're giving money to Republicans to support pro-industry policies, and they're giving to Democrats to minimize anti-industry policies. Of course this doesn't exactly reflect well on Congressional Democrats. But nobody involved buys the idea, peddled by some conservative journalists, that it's really the Democrats who are on the side of big business.

They're giving to the GOP because they want the GOP to win and to give them more trillion dollar handouts like Bush's tax cuts and Medicare drug benefit.  It doesn't matter if they think the GOP is going to win or not.  But they're getting started now in order to fulfill a self-fulfilling prophecy, and hey, the Citizens United decision made it so very easy for corporate money to buy a candidate.

But hey, if you can throw unlimited money at Washington now, might as well buy the party that's going to make sure you can rape the environment, the treasury, and the workforce as much as you want...and that's the GOP, hands down.