Big money does everything it can to buy both parties, but there is a significant difference in funding for Romney vs. Obama this year:
Romney
17 of top 20 donors are financial institutions (and that is being generous, not counting General Electric as a financial institution).
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286
Obama
Only 1 of the top 20 donors are financial institutions
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00009638
What about 2008?
Even in 2008, Obama was nowhere nearly tied to financial institutions like Romney is this year. Only 5 of his top 20 donors were financial institutions, although he received big headlines because he received a large amount of money from Goldman Sachs.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638
McCain, meanwhile, had financial institutions as 12 of his top 20 donors.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00006424
Certainly finance is big business in the U.S. and they have more money to spend to corrupt the political process than almost anyone else. It is unrealistic to expect a candidate to refuse all donations from the financial industry.
Yet, it is a weak moral equivalence argument to say they are equally indebted to Wall Street.
Finance accounts for 85% of Romney's top donors
Finance accounts for 5% of Obama's top donors
Even in 2008, more financial companies were supporting the McCain campaign (although with lower dollar amounts).
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