Giannoulias' Banking Blunders
Mark Kirk is apparently planning to return money he raised from employees of Goldman Sachs after the Giannoulias campaign put out a press release claiming Kirk had accepted a total of $54,010 from employees of the Wall Street titan, $21,600 of which was apparently donated to his Senate campaign.
At a press conference in Chicago yesterday, Kirk told reporters that he would "err on the side of caution" and return the money.
I'm not entirely sure why Kirk is choosing to give the money back. By choosing to return the money, Kirk appears to be acknowledging that he did something wrong, which, frankly, he didn't. The fact that Kirk's campaign still don't even know how much money Goldman employees donated is both troubling and exonerating at the same time. It's troubling because the campaign absolutely should have been following the source of the money being given to Kirk and had a response prepared in the event that Giannoulias' campaign tried to make this an issue. The Kirk campaign’s slow response is also a reminder that most campaign funds get contributed in a semi-disorganized way. Goldman Sachs didn't give Mark Kirk money; their employees did.
I think it's foolish for Kirk to give the money back, but regardless, if Giannoulias is going to play this game, Kirk's response is fairly easy. Giannoulias is charging that Kirk is tied to corporate interests? Kirk could respond as follows:
The irony of Alexi Giannoulias bringing to light the fact that I received money from bankers, who, let’s be honest, are not America's favorite people right now is pretty ironic. If Mr. Giannoulias thinks bankers caused the financial crisis, he should remove himself from the ticket since his family bank is about to go under thanks to irresponsible and foolish real estate bets he made. Furthermore, the only people that stand to benefit from the failure of the Giannoulias bank are the Giannouliases, who would collect the insurance payout. Also, bankers may be greedy, .but most of them are not tied to corruption as Giannoulias is. Know who loaned $15 million to Tony Rezko? That would be Alexi Giannoulias. Want to know whose major campaign fundraiser was just picked up on corruption charges? Alexi Giannoulias. And who do you think is buddies with Rod Blagojevich? Yep, Alexi Giannoulias.
Kirk's response needs to stress a few key points:
Alexi Giannoulias was a banker, and not a very good one at that considering that his family bank is on the brink of failure for investing in the very real estate market that caused the financial crisis.
As a banker, Giannoulias loaned $15 million dollars to Tony Rezko, who is now in prison for federal corruption charges.
Candidate Giannoulias received $120,000 from businessman Nick Giannis who was just indicted in a check kiting scheme in Cook County and then was arrested by Canadian authorities as he tried to flee the country.
And did we mention Giannoulias knows Blagojevich really well?
