McCain's Big Loot Bundlers

Update: NYT threw in their two cents on this.
The Washington Post takes a look at McCain's bundlers, people who get other people to give money and "bundle" it together because the law limits how much an individual can give.

Obama has bundlers too, though fewer than McCain and Hillary, (though Obama has raised the most money from his bundlers. See breakout below).

But it looks like McCain's bundlers are sketchy. Quid quo Pro anyone? Donors funneling money to a campaign they don't even support? Donors not even registered to vote giving money to a campaign? Arab donors giving to the McCain campaign? The folks at freerepublic must be shuddering. Wowza!

I think it's just sad that all this money is going to a political campaign, which is why money shouldn't be concentrated in the hands of a few. McCain's tax cuts for the wealthy would only further this deficit between the rich and poor. The rich know how to get more money, they know the loopholes. Why do they need the upper hand as well?

WaPo: The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727, the 30-something owners of the Twilight Hookah Lounge in Fullerton.

..........
At the Twilight Hookah Lounge, owned by Nadia and Shawn Abdalla, patrons smoke tobacco flavored with honey and fruit from a menu that includes the strawberry-flavored Sex on the Beach and the strong, orange-flavored Fuzzy Navel.

The Abdallas, who are not registered to vote, said in an interview that they recalled writing a check to an organization in Miami, because a person with that organization was a friend of their mother's. They said they could not remember his name.

Nader, 39, and Sahar Alhawash, 28, of Colton, Calif, who at one point ran the Avon Village Liquor store, donated a total of $18,400 to Giuliani, Clinton and McCain between December and March. About 80 people in the country made such large contributions to all three, and most were wealthy business executives, such as Donald Trump. The Alhawashes declined to comment about the donations. Abdullah Abdullah, a supervisor at several Taco Bell restaurants in the Riverside area, and his wife have donated $9,200 to McCain.

Reached at work, Abdullah said he knows little about the campaign. "I have no idea. I'll be honest with you," he said. "I'm involved in the restaurant business. My brother Faisal recommended John McCain. Whenever he makes a recommendation, we do it."

Faisal Abdullah, 49, said he helped organize all of the contributions from members of his family. When he was asked who solicited the contributions from him, he said: "Why does it matter who? I'm telling you we made the contribution. We funneled it through the channel in Florida because that's the contact we had. I was responsible for collecting it."

Here's an interesting tidbit on Harry Seargent, a formal naval officer and owner of a $1 billion oil trading company. Donors always come through for him, he says.

Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.

Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money.

"I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I've got a lot of friends," Sargeant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me."
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Here's the breakout of bundlers, according to Whitehouseforsale.org. Obama has the fewest lobbyist bundlers, 14. He has raised $337 million from 552 bundlers 471 mega donors.

McCain has 76 lobbyist donors. He has raised $122 million from 850 donors and 1,101 mega donors.
Here are Obama's mega donors and McCain's mega donors.

McCain's Oil Drilling Hoax

Unfortunately, issues like these are too detailed for many people. McCain says he can make gas prices go down and people get happy. But I post anyway. In hopes.
Note that the price of oil has come down significantly but gas prices haven't.

RCP The prospect of significant new petroleum resources that could be available so soon would be excellent news -- aside from the obvious impact of burning still more oil -- if only what the senator said was true. But what he said actually made no sense whatsoever, as a statement about the future development of domestic oil, the alleged need to increase drilling off our coasts or the resources that such drilling might produce. So let's unpack that McCain statement (which was overshadowed by the news that his dermatologist had just removed a small lesion from the 71-year-old melanoma survivor's right cheek).

It may be true that "existing rigs" could produce additional barrels of domestic oil immediately, whether on land or in the ocean, as Sen. McCain suggests. If so, he might want to ask his friends in the oil business why those rigs aren't producing more oil now, at prices above $120 a barrel. An existing rig by definition is a rig that is operating legally on property already leased for exploration -- and can produce oil unencumbered by any environmental constraints on drilling. In case the senator doesn't understand, an existing rig is where someone has already drilled a well.
Where companies would have to install new rigs, the question is whether a lease already exists or whether the government would have to grant a new lease. New drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf would mean new leases that are now illegal.

But as the Associated Press reported last month, nearly 75 percent of the existing leases on federal lands held by petroleum companies are currently producing no oil. Those companies today hold nearly 30 million acres dormant, according to the AP. Nobody in the federal government even knows whether any exploration has taken place over the past decade.

Did you catch the news of republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska now being accused of accepting lavish gifts from oil companies? Where do oil companies want to drill? Alaska!

Who's pushing drilling? Bush McCain. The Bush-Cheney administration was all about oil. 

Recently, oil execs gave $1 million to McCain's campaign. 

The more we continue to rely on oil, the less attention will be paid to alternative and renewable fuels. 
AP on the oil hoax
NPR on oil drilling
The Institute for Energy Research on drilling