Politico Wants You To Think Banks Are Bankrolling Mourdock's Campaign

This has to rank as one of the most gratuitous "let's help Dick Lugar win a seventh term to the Senate" efforts by the media to date. Politico runs with the headline, "It's payback time as banks boost Dick Lugar rival."  The story gives the impression banks have started raising all kinds of money for Richard Mourdock's campaign because Lugar voted against the banks on an amendment to legislation that would have blocked caps on swipe fees charged by banks on ATM cards. "The banking industry is making an example of Sen. Dick Lugar," the story claims in mentioning an "inside the beltway fundraiser" the industry recently held on Mourdock's behalf. According to the story, retailers are appalled that the bankers are going after lawmakers who sided with them in the legislative battle.

For their part, retailers said they are appalled by the tactic.

“That’s absurd. Debit swipe fee reforms passed because thousands of merchants, small and large, fought back against an unfair and anticompetitive system,” Retail Industry Leaders Association’s Brian Dodge said. “If the banks and card networks don’t yet recognize that these reforms passed on their merits and have no plans to change their behavior, then extending these reforms to credit cards will be easier than we thought.”

If you failed to read the page after the jump, you would have missed this revealing item: "RILA President Katherine Lugar is the senator’s daughter-in-law." Yeah, that might tell us more about the motive behind Lugar's vote than anything else. How many of Lugar's relatives are working as lobbyists in Washington? His son, David, is a lobbyist for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Technology. Lugar told CBS News that his son never lobbies him or his staff personally.

The Politico story only identifies a single $5,000 the banking industry has donated to Mourdock's poorly-funded campaign against Lugar's giant multi-million dollar warchest. The ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who rakes in a lot of money from the banking industry, gave Lugar $5,000. The story opines that the Republican Party will have to spend a lot of money to save the seat if Mourdock upsets Lugar in the primary.