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Last night, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama reiterated once more that he does not take money from lobbyists:

OLBERMANN: Thirty seconds. Senator Obama, I know you and Senator Edwards have taken a firm stand against accepting money from lobbyists, yet you allow them to raise money for you and, as the phrase goes, "Bundle it." What's the difference between those things?
OBAMA: No, no. I do not have federal registered lobbyists bundling for me, just like I don't take PAC money.  (APPLAUSE) And the reason that's important is because the people in this stadium need to know who we are going to fight for. And I want to be absolutely clear that the reason I'm in public  life, the reason I came to Chicago, the reason I started working with  unions, the reason I march on picket lines, the reason that I'm  running for president is because of you... (APPLAUSE) ... not because of the folks who are writing big checks. And that's a clear message that has to be sent, I think, by every candidate.

Click here for full transcript. 

While Obama's assertion is reality-based, he is dancing on a technicality, since several of his bundlers have recent histories that include lobbying. In April, Alex Bolton reported in The Hill that:

Three of Obama's top fundraisers, who each have raised more than $50,000 for his campaign since January, were registered as lobbyists last year, according to reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records. In 2006, Alan Solomont of Solomont Bailis Ventures earned $90,000 in lobbying income; Tom Reed, of Kirkland & Ellis, lobbied for the Seismological Society of America, the Nanobusiness Alliance, and the Airport Minority Advisory Council; and Scott Harris, of Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis, represented Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Dell and Sprint-Nextel.

All three Obama fundraisers have said they are no longer lobbyists, although the public records office has not posted contract termination reports for any of them.

Several other major Obama fundraisers also have histories of lobbying government officials for a living. Thomas Perrelli was a lobbyist for Jenner & Block as recently as 2005. Until 2003, when Obama was a member of the Illinois Senate, Peter Bynoe was a registered state lobbyist representing Boeing and other corporate interests, according to the Illinois secretary of state. They have both raised at least $50,000 for Obama's presidential bid, according to his campaign.

In fact, at least five of Obama's disclosed bundlers have registered in the past with the Senate Office of Public Records. Three of them hadn't filed the normal paperwork indicating termination of their lobbying contracts, though Alan Solomont, Tom Reed and Scott Harris all told they Hill they had stopped lobbying.

(You can confirm the lobbying IDs with the Secretary of the Senate's lobbying database. For example: Alan Solomont; Tom Reed; Scott Harris. One of them, Thomas Perelli, of Jenner and Block, lobbied for victims of the August 1998 Africa embassy bombings. Which raises the point that many have made in comments that not all lobbyists are alike.)

The article went on to point out that some fundraisers for Obama are corporate officers of companies that hire lobbyists. At least 10 other major bundlers work for companies that have lobbied the federal government, including Bill Kennard of the Carlyle Group.

And late last week, the Los Angeles Times noted that Obama has taken in more than $1.4 million from firms with partners registered to lobby the federal government.

That total likely includes money brought in by two federal lobbyists who don't appear on Obama's "official" fundraising list. John Corrigan and Sanford Stein both had their personal donations to Obama returned, the LA Times reported. They also were asked not to help with fundraising, but not until after they had sent out emails for a fundraiser that helped Obama bring in $190,000 from Illinois donors between June 6 and June 11th. Did Obama return the money Corrigan and Stein helped to bring in? He hasn't said.

As today's Tom Paine article on the candidates' "Secret Santas" describes, the candidates are actually ALL being less-than-forthcoming about the details of their fundraising operations.  

Public Citizen sent letters today to all of them calling on them to "put their mouths where their money is" and come clean on their bundling operations. It's a sad day when the Democratic hopefuls are disclosing less campaign finance information than did masters of secrecy Bush and Cheney in 2004.

You can find out what we do know about the presidential candidates' bundlers at www.WhiteHouseforSale.org and collect tips on bird-dogging the candidates on their poor disclosure of bundlers here.

Public Citizen, among others, is calling for a law to require disclosure of all bundling activity (and not merely by lobbyists, as in the recently passed lobbying and ethics bill). Relying on voluntary disclosure of information about bundlers makes us all too dependent on the whims of candidates.

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According to the annual personal financial disclosure statements, 42 Members of Congress own stock in Verizon (10 Ds and 32Rs). Thirty-six own stock in Time Warner (16 Ds and 20Rs). Thirty-three own stock in AT&T (11Ds and 22 Rs). Or, if net neutrality ain't your cause, how about Wal-Mart and the 42 members who own stock in the low-wage discount giant?

It used to be that the only way to figure this stuff out was ridiculously time-consuming. You could patiently download hundreds of PDFs, or try to read individual pages online. No wonder hardly anyone ever looks at what Members of Congress actually own--or that the fact that the number of millionaires in Congress outpaces the general population by a ratio of 35-1 is hardly ever mentioned.

Not any more. Want to know exactly how the federal government spends your money, or which contractors get the bulk of government deals, or what percentage of those contracts are bid competitively? Or, would you like to find out how much your Member of Congress is worth, or how many Members own stock in specific companies? Feel like checking out who's taken the most trips sponsored by private groups? Three new databases, one built by OMB Watch and two built by the Center for Responsive Politics, have just gone live, and judging by the intense press interest in the launch, I think there's going to be a lot of new and interesting stories appearing soon. (Full disclosure: I am a consultant to the Sunlight Foundation, which funded these new databases, and helped with this launch.)

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Wake up.  We were not born yesterday.  I'm not going to name usernames.  Hell, I won't even name the candidates you're working for... but both should be obvious to loyal readers of this site. It wouldn't be so obvious but for the fact that every single diary you put up is in support of the candidate that so very obviously is paying you.  Maybe support isn't the right word because more often you're just trashing their opponents who are good Democrats or attacking the good people at the DCCC, DSCC, and DNC who lets not forget are trying to elect a Democratic congress.

Don't give me that line about you being a volunteer or "just an avid supporter." If you really were or wanted to be a part of this MyDD community you would have SOMETHING, ANYTHING to say besides yet another reason why we should throw our money away on your underdog candidate.  Read that last sentence again and again.  If it doesn't apply to you, then this post isn't targeted at you.

You know, its kind of funny.  I had a friend that was hired along with 7 other people to serve as full-time paid blog commentors for a candidate in a statewide race.  I am not kidding.  His job was to spend upwards of 8 hours a day sitting in front of a computer using several different usernames at various local and national message boards and blogs hyping up his guy and talking trash on other candidates.  Needless to say, the job didn't last long because the candidate pulled out early as this is a pathetically idiotic way to run a campaign.

Lets imagine the thought process of a campaign manager who decides to hire a commentor/diarist:

"Hmmmm, we can't raise any money because we're clearly overmatched and the other candidates have far more local support.  What will we do?  I know, we'll go scream into the echo chamber.  We don't have to build up any real local support when we can go to the blogosphere ATM.  It doesn't matter to them that the locals aren't with us and we're clearly overmatched.  They love underdogs, and we can paint the other guy as the big bad DCCC/DLC/DSCC bogeyman.  Oh and we can have complete anonymity to slander and lie at will."

NEWS FLASH...  We are up to your game.  You are hurting the blog community.  If you want to continue to post diaries on this site PLEASE DISCLOSE YOUR STATUS AS A PAID CAMPAIGN STAFFER or become an actual member of the community rather than a solicitor.

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