Al Franken

Franken's half-million from the FIRE sector pales beside Norm's nearly $2 million.

During the 2008 cycle, Sen. Norm Coleman has received three and a half times more in campaign contributions than Al Franken from interests in the so-called FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) sector at the heart of the continuing financial crisis–and over twice as much from the principal players in this week’s Wall Street drama.

This morning I crunched the following Minnesota US Senate race numbers from the Center for Responsive Politics’ campaign finance database at Open Secrets. I was looking for two things:

1) Norm Coleman and Al Franken’s respective contributions from the four most prominent players in this week’s Wall Street crisis (the bankrupt Lehman Brothers; bailout recipient AIG; near-bankrupt Merrill Lynch; and Bank of America, which agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch).

2) Coleman and Franken’s overall contributions from companies in the crisis-plagued FIRE sector.

The numbers cited below all are from the 2008 cycle, and are current through the most recent reporting period, which ended on July 28.

Coleman and Franken’s donations from this week’s Wall Street headline-makers:

Lehman Brothers:

Coleman $4,300; Franken $1,000

Bank of America:

Coleman $8,300; Franken $1,000

Merrill Lynch:

Franken $4,525; Coleman $2,400

AIG:

Coleman $1,000; Franken $0

Total: Coleman $16,000; Franken $6,525

Coleman and Franken’s funding from the FIRE sector (*):

Total:

Coleman $1,833,281

Franken $513,787*

[* Though the insurance industry does not appear among Franken's top 20 donor industries--which is as far as Open Secrets' website goes without getting into custom data sets--this does not mean Franken has gotten no money from insurance interests. It does mean that his donations from the insurance biz equal less than the $28,750 given by number 20 on Franken's list, organized labor.]