Reply #5: My take on this is the same as yours

[suffragette]

I started wondering about this and poking around, too.

From OpenSecrets.org:

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/brothers-grim-is-lehman-next.html

Since 1989, Lehman Brothers's employees and political action committee have given $9.2 million to federal candidates, parties and political action committees, with 54 percent of that going to Democrats. In the current Congress, 271 lawmakers have collected nearly $3 million since 1989, with 72 percent going to Democrats.

And a little more on the AIG NY contributions. This is from 2006:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2006/09/21/72628.htm

In the case of AIG, the insurance giant is limited to giving $5,000 (euro3,951) to a candidate. But the parent company used 33 subsidiaries in recent years to give $335,000 (euro264,738) to three-term Republican Gov. George Pataki; $50,000 (euro39,513) to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic front-runner for governor; and $25,000 (euro19,757) to Democratic Comptroller Alan Hevesi, according to The New York Times.