She's spent $5 million so far and she's prepared to spend another $25 million of her own money on the object of her desire - a seat in the United States Senate representing Connecticut. She's Linda McMahon, the wife of wrestling kingpin Vince McMahon. From the New York Times:

She is a political novice seeking to unseat one of the most powerful Democrats in the United States Senate. But Linda McMahon does possess one big weapon: a vast personal fortune that she is already wielding to shake up the race.

Ms. McMahon has been saturating residents with television advertisements, pouring money into the campaigns of local elected officials and building a campaign organization that dwarfs its rivals.

The spending, roughly $5 million, more than 10 months before the election, has transformed Ms. McMahon, the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, into a potent political force as she seeks the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Christopher J. Dodd.

The campaign of Ms. McMahon's main rival in the Republican primary, former Representative Rob Simmons, has responded with a wave of attacks as he suddenly finds himself contending with a formidable opponent.

Even Democrats close to the Dodd campaign acknowledge concerns about facing Ms. McMahon in a general election, given the huge sums of money she has been willing to spend in the first few months of the race. Her campaign says she is prepared to spend at least $30 million to win the seat.

Thirty million is quite the tidy sum considering that in the 2008 cycle the most expensive Senate race in the country was the contest between Al Franken and Norm Coleman up in Minnesota. To win the seat, the challenger Franken raised and spent $22.5 million and the incumbent Norm Coleman raised and spent $19.3 million. But of that $41.8 million, a combined $15 million was spent by both candidates in the legal challenges that arose from the close contest that led to a recount and its ensuing six month long court battle. In other words before election day, Franken and Coleman spent $26.8 million combined. McMahon may exceed that amount on her own.

Still, a bruising primary fight may be what the doctor ordered for flailing Chris Dodd who has spent $1.8 million on the race as of September. As for the other Republican in the race, Rob Simmons, he has spent $900,000 so far. Still he's being outspent 5 to 1. While the race in Connecticut has seen a grand total of $11,034,712 spent so far according to Open Secrets, that's only good enough for second place right now. In Arizona, $11,813,091 has been spent.

Just for the record, after Minnesota the two next most expensive Senate races in the 2008 cycle were in Kentucky with a combined $32.1 million spent (McConnell spent $21 million to defend his seat) and in Texas with a combined $23.0 million spent (Corynn spend $19 million to defend his seat). In the 2008 cycle, the average winner of a Senate seat spent $8,531,267. And the overall record belongs to Jon Corzine who spent $62 million to win a Senate seat from New Jersey in 2000. Combined with his winning and losing runs for governor in 2005 and 2009, Jon Corzine spent an estimated $131 million of his own money in his three runs for office.

There's more...

Northwestern University's Medill News Service in partnership with the Tribune Newspapers Washington Bureau and the Center for Responsive Politics have released their analysis of the revolving door in the healthcare debate. OpenSecrets' Revolving Door database tracks anyone whose résumé includes positions of influence in both the private and public sectors and tracks the shuffle of individuals who were former federal employees and then take jobs as lobbyists, corporate consultants and legislative strategists as well as hired guns who then return to work in government helping to craft legislation.

The fact is that a stint on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide often leads to a more lucrative perch in the land of tasseled loafers known as K Street. For example, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has 14 of his former employees now working for the US Chamber of Commerce, Pharmaceutical Research and the National Association of Manufacturers, and Verizon while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has 13 former staffers who now lobby for clients including the US Chamber of Commerce and Pharmaceutical Research. In the healthcare debate, at least 14 former aides to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and at least 13 former aides to Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee served as registered lobbyists lobbying their former bosses and their colleagues.

At least 166 former aides from the nine congressional leadership offices and five committees involved in shaping health overhaul legislation -- along with at least 13 former lawmakers -- registered to represent at least 338 health care clients since the beginning of last year, according to the analysis.

Their health care clients spent $635 million on lobbying over the past two years, the study shows.

The total of insider lobbyists jumps to 278 when non-health-care firms that reported lobbying on health issues are added in, the analysis found.

Part of the lobbying pressure on current members of Congress and staffers comes from the powerful lure of post-congressional job possibilities.

"There's always a worry they may be thinking about their future employment opportunities when dealing with these issues, particularly with health care, because the stakes are so high and the breadth of the issues -- pharmacies, hospitals, doctors," said Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz.

Lobbyists' earnings can dwarf congressional salaries, which currently top out at $174,000 annually for lawmakers and $156,000 for aides, though committee staff members can earn slightly more.

In the health care showdown, insider lobbying influence has magnified the clout of corporate interests and helped steer the debate away from a public insurance option, despite many polls indicating majority support from Americans, according to Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker.

"It imposes a kind of conservative bias on the discussion," said Baker, himself a former Senate staffer.

Breaking it down by Senate or House Committee, the numbers are eye-opening. Forty-five former staffers of the members of the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) are now lobbying. Their clients include the Chamber of Commerce, Exxon Mobil, AARP, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers, General Electric, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Verizon, AT&T, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. Thirty-six current lobbyists are veterans of the Senate Finance Committee. They now represent the Chamber of Commerce, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturesrs, General Electric, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

Over in the House of Representatives, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has 45 former staffers now working as lobbyists, the Ways and Means Committee 23, and House Education and Labor trails with just 18.

There's more...

Karen Tumulty and Micheal Scherer of Time have a very important article out looking at the influence of the drug industry in  the American political process as our current debate over healthcare unfolds.

To begin with the sheer number of the drug industry's registered lobbyists is mind-boggling. They number 1,228, or 2.3 for every member of Congress. And the drug industry's campaign contributions to current members of the Henry Waxman chaired Energy and Commerce committee have totaled $2.6 million over the past three years. But what's most stunning is this: in the first six months of this year alone, drug and biotech companies and their trade associations have spent more than $110 million -- that's $609,000 a day -- to influence our elected representatives.

Judging by the euphoria, that investment in their future seems to be paying off.

The return on that investment has been considerable, both in the House and in the Senate. "We've done very well," says lobbyist Jim Greenwood, a former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania who was a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and now heads the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). "We carried a majority of the Democrats and a majority of the Republicans in each of the committees, and by very clear margins."

The Time article is also remarkable in that it sheds light on competing interests of different healthcare-related lobbies and on the growing influence of the biotech industry. The Time piece looks at the battle over how much legal protection to give the manufacturers of a class of drug products known as biologics, drugs produced from living matter. Biologics are very expensive to produce and the biotech industry argued that they should be afforded 12 years of "data protection." That's seven years longer than the five that traditional pharmaceutical developers currently receive.

On the other side of the coin were the generic drug producers who were allied with the AARP, labor unions, insurance companies, health-maintenance organizations and health-reform advocacy groups, each for various reasons but generally under the realm of cost containment.

It should come as no surprise that the biotech lobbying group, the  Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which spent $7.6 million in its lobbying efforts in 2008 has so far come out ahead of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association which only spent $1.9 million in lobbying Congress in 2008. It should also be noted that it is Anna Eshoo, a liberal Democrat from bio-tech rich Palo Alto, who is leading the charge to protect the biotech industry. It should also be noted that the largest contributor to Representative Eshoo's campaigns is the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Makes you wonder whose side she is on?

There's more...

An article published in the UK Guardian provides an overview of the lobbying effort conducted by insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals dedicated to ensuring that healthcare reform proposals don't threaten their profits. All told, these industry and interest groups have spent $380 million trying to influence healthcare legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress.

The Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics have teamed up on a collaborative investigative project that has uncovered never-before-seen webs of campaign contributions from outside lobbyists and their clients, who are all important players in the health care reform, to key members of Congress.

Their investigation identified outside lobbyists who donated to the same members of Congress as their clients. Their findings strongly suggest that special interest giving is enhanced by the K Street contributors they hire. Call it a one-two punch aimed at TKOing a public option.

Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the author of one of the  health care reform bills now being debated in the Senate, was the biggest beneficiaries of this one-two punch from the lobbyists and their clients. From January 2007 through June 2009, Senator Baucus collected contributions from 37 outside lobbyists representing PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry's chief trade association, and 36 lobbyists who listed drug maker Amgen Inc. as their client. Overall Senator Baucus has received $1.5 million from the health sector towards his re-election coffers.

In all, 11 major health and insurance firms had their contributions to Senator Baucus boosted through extra donations from 10 or more of their outside lobbyists. You can see all these curious clusters of cash at Open Secrets.

Beyond the noxious effect of all that cash, the health industry has permeated the process in other ways. At Senator Baucus's side, helping to draft the wording of the Baucuscare, was Liz Fowler, a Senate committee counsel whose previous position was  as Vice President of Public Policy and External Affairs of the country's largest health insurer in terms of membership, WellPoint. Ms. Fowler worked at WellPoint from May 2006 through February 2008, according to the company. She previously worked for Senator Baucus from 2001 to 2005. Something about a revolving door comes to mind.

There's more...