Opaque campaign coffers

Washington: Barack Obama has long been among the most outspoken critics of the influence of money in politics.

Yet records show that in his presidential campaign, he has not lived up to his promise to fully disclose the identities of his top money-collectors who bundle millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

Since November, Obama had added just two new names to a list of more than 326 fundraisers who have bundled contributions of $50,000 (Dh183,500) or more for him, despite the campaign's taking in more than $180 million during that time.

After receiving an inquiry from The New York Times, the campaign scrambled on Thursday evening to update its list of bundlers, adding 185 names to it - a more than 50 per cent jump - and increasing the amounts some were credited with raising.

With individual contributions limited to $2,300, bundlers fuel the fundraising of presidential campaigns by collecting piles of cheques from wealthy acquaintances in a practice that critics say gives them excessive influence.

While Obama has collected unprecedented amounts in small donations over the internet, he also has a formidable high-dollar fundraising apparatus.

At least 60 members of Obama's National Finance Committee, who have each committed to raising at least $250,000 for him, were not on the publicly available bundler list on the campaign's website as of Thursday afternoon. Several of the missing members said in interviews that they began raising money for Obama in early to mid-2007 and already exceeded their $250,000 goal.

Obama has made transparency a cornerstone of his campaign, even introducing a Bill in the Senate last year that would mandate that presidential candidates identify their bundlers.

But Obama's spotty record in disclosing new bundlers in recent months, despite repeated entreaties from watchdog groups, compares unfavourably to that of George W. Bush during his two runs for president.

Watchdog

"Obama was saying he was the most transparent, but it wasn't even on par with Bush and Cheney," said Alexander Cohen, senior researcher at Public Citizen, a nonpartisan watchdog group that recently sent letters to Obama and Senator John McCain with seven other organisations calling for them to disclose more information about their donors.

Obama campaign officials acknowledged on Thursday that they had fallen behind on their plan to update their list quarterly and that they had not added any names since January. "Keeping track of how much our bundlers have raised is not an exact science, and we will be vigilant in updating those names and figures," Ben LaBolt, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement.

McCain, who has also railed against the influence of money on politics, has also been lax. Despite promising early on to disclose bundlers, it was only in April that the campaign released a list of just over 100 top fundraisers, who had brought in $100,000 or more. Since then, McCain has added only one name to his list, who earn the title of "Trailblazer" if they raise more than $100,000, and "Innovator" if they exceed $250,000.

It is unclear how many bundlers might be missing from McCain's list. He has enjoyed a surge in fundraising in recent months, after struggling much of last year, and absorbed many former fundraisers for Mitt Romney, Rudolph W. Giuliani and other Republican rivals who were not on his initial list.

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain, said on Thursday that staffers were in the process of updating their bundler list, saying he believed it was "reasonable" to except the campaign would add to it "every couple months".

"It'll be updated in the next week or so," Rogers said. "This is something Sen McCain believes in. He's committed to being open and transparent."

Highlighting his commitment to beating back special interests in politics, Obama makes a point of declining contributions from lobbyists and political action committees. And he often cites as his signal accomplishment in the Senate his role in the passage of another Bill last year that required lobbyists to disclose their bundled donations - a law that has not yet gone into effect. He also became the first candidate to post a list of his top fundraisers early last year.

Although there is no legal requirement for candidates to disclose their bundlers, in 2000 and 2004, President Bush identified people who had raised at least $100,000 for his campaign, whom he called "Pioneers". In 2004, he also listed the names of those who had raised $200,000 or more, calling them "Rangers". Reporters and watchdog groups pored over Bush's lists, eventually discovering that 49 Pioneers or Rangers later became ambassadors.

In March, after months of requests from The Chicago Sun-Times, the Obama campaign released to the newspaper a roster of nearly 300 people on its National Finance Committee. But the campaign declined this week to release a more recent roster to The New York Times. A dozen Obama fundraisers confirmed in interviews that they had either surpassed the $50,000 mark for Obama and were not on the campaign's bundler list.