Lax on Its List of ‘Bundlers,’ the Obama Campaign Names Names

[Hope And Change]

July 10, 2008, 11:01 pm

Lax on Its List of ‘Bundlers,’ the Obama Campaign Names Names

By http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/author/mluo/">Michael Luo

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign published the names of a whopping 181 new bundlers of campaign contributions this evening, adding to its existing list of 328 elite fund-raisers, after The New York Times made an inquiry earlier in the day about how complete the list was.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/us/politics/11bundlers.html">Reviewing records, The New York Times concluded dozens of members of Mr. Obama’s National Finance Committee, who commit to raising at least $250,000, were not on the list, which is supposed to identify anyone who has raised $50,000 or more. In interviews, several of the missing members said they began raising money for Mr. Obama in early to mid-2007 and already exceeded their $250,000 goal.

A group of watchdog organizations had issued a letter to Mr. Obama, as well as Mr. McCain, pushing for better disclosure of their top fund-raisers last month. It was the latest of several letters they have sent the candidates on the issue. In Mr. Obama’s case, they pointed out he had added just two new names to his list since November, despite his campaign bringing in $180 million during that time.

Mr. Obama first released a list of his bundlers early last year, but Mr. McCain only published his list in April. Since then, he has only added one name to his list.

A spokesman for the McCain campaign said it would be updating http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/fundraisers.htm">its list sometime in the next week.

The Obama campaign, however, moved much quicker after being questioned about it Thursday, acknowledging it had fallen behind in its plan to update the list quarterly.


http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/lax-on-its-list-of-bundlers-the-obama-campaign-names-names/">Read the entire article here