Republicans in tights

* mark schmidt:

"Another point occurred to me as I was overindulging in this data: the period of Abramoff's peak influence was fairly brief, centered around the 2002 election. That year he, his tribal clients and SunCruz Casinos gave more than $2 million to candidates and committees... up from $600,000 the cycle before and then it dropped again to $1.4 million last year.

And in retrospect, 2002 was really the killer election for Democrats, arguably more than 2000 or 2004. It established absolute one-party control over all of government, and set the model for the shameless Rovian abuse of national security as a weapon...

Democrats bear plenty of responsibility for their 2002 defeat, particularly for neglecting to articulate an economic strategy in the middle of a recession. But it's striking to realize what a large role Abramoff played in targetting money to Republicans in tight races that year."

indeed - 2002 really was an odd time for political contribututions - i've discussed some of the issues here. DeLay's legal worries wrt TRMPAC come from this time - as do a lot of the Duke-related, and Wilkes-related donations in this period are all fishy.