Americans have been having a lot of fun with fundrace.org, a new website that searches the public record for political donations. Euromoney, of course, was most interested in gifts from US bank CEOs.
George W Bush came out well on top, garnering the maximum $2,000 donation from almost every CEO on the list. But there were surprises among the Democrats. Dick Gephardt pulled in more donations than any other candidate and Howard Dean got none at all.
At Citigroup, both Sandy Weill and Chuck Prince gave Bush $2,000, although Prince also gave $2,000 to John Kerry.
At Bear Stearns, Ace Greenberg, demonstrating his legendary frugality, donated just $500 to John Edwards. CEO Jimmy Cayne was more generous, giving $2,000 to both Bush and Gephardt. Interestingly, that's exactly the same pair of donations chosen by Bank One's Jamie Dimon.
Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs's Hank Paulson, and CSFB's John Mack don't spread their bets: they gave just the one $2,000 donation to Bush. At JPMorgan Bill Harrison proved more maverick, giving nothing to Bush and $1,000 to Joe Lieberman.
At FleetBoston, Chad Gifford donated $2,000 to Kerry, leaving Bush nothing.
The most generous was Dick Fuld of Lehman Brothers, who gave $6,000 in total ? $2,000 each to Bush, Gephardt and Lieberman. Maybe he'll add Kerry later.