WASHINGTON — Financial giants now being bailed out by the government spent millions underwriting the Democratic and Republican national conventions last summer, just weeks before coming to Washington begging for multibillion-dollar handouts.
The big donors included AIG, Ford Motor Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Freddie Mac.
In all, major corporations, labor unions and individual millionaires dumped $118 million into the nominating conventions for Barack Obama and John McCain, according to reports from the Campaign Finance Institute and the Center for Responsive Politics.
The private groups compiled the numbers from filings required under federal law.
Wall Street financial institutions were by no means the largest donors.
Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian of Beverly Hills, Calif., was watching his investment in Ford Motor Co. dwindle in mid-August when he sent $2 million to the Republican convention in Minneapolis and $1.5 million to the Democrats.
Ford spent $100,000 on each of the two conventions. Ford could benefit from the proposed auto-industry bailout being worked out in Washington. Ford wants a $9 billion standby line of credit in case a competitor fails.
A potential bailout recipient, General Motors Corp., loaned hundreds of new cars to the Democratic and Republican convention committees.
Also getting into the act were operators of hedge funds, a huge and largely unregulated part of the financial-services industry that hopes to remain as free from regulation as possible, notwithstanding its role in the financial meltdown.
