The Philadelphia Inquirer editorial page calls for public disclosure of the "bundlers" who raise big bucks for the various presidential candidates - and notes that the leading GOP candidates and two of the three leading Democratic candidates have agreed to do so.
Political supporters known as "bundlers" are an inevitable part of federal election campaigns. Bundlers are wealthy or well-connected individuals who promise to raise, well, bundles of cash for a candidate, in return for who knows what.
Hollywood mogul David Geffen, for example, recently held a fund-raiser that netted about $1.3 million for Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.). Obama has pledged to disclose the names of his bundlers. So has Democrat John Edwards, and Republican candidates Sen. John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Rudy Giuliani.
The notable exception, so far, is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D., N.Y.). Clinton has assigned her biggest "Hillraisers," or bundlers, a goal of bringing in $1 million each. Why shouldn't the public know who these people are? They have more clout than virtually anyone else in the fund-raising process.
Obama successfully included a provision last month in a Senate lobbying bill to disclose the identity of bundlers in Senate races, and a bill pending in the House also would require disclosure.
The Inquirer says, rightly, that "openness about bundlers is especially important in the 2008 presidential campaign because this race will probably be the first one since the early 1970s financed entirely through private donations."
Clinton has already said she will decline federal funds for the general election, if she wins the nomination.
Given her early declaration of such an arms race, the eventual Republican nominee would likely decide to do the same. Together, both major candidates are expected to spend nearly $1 billion. The public has a right to know the names of these political financiers.
Expect Obama and Edwards to bang on Hillary for not disclosing the names, until she does. Also, it's worth noting that Clinton has said she will fund her general-election campaign through donations rather than the federal financing system, while Obama has pledged the opposite if the GOP nominee also pledges to accept the federal financing and the spending limit that goes with it.
What that means is, the eventual Republican nominee must raise funds now as if the general election opponent will be Clinton, and the federal financing and spending limit won't be in play. Otherwise, the GOP nominee may find themselves short of cash against the unfettered spending of Hillary Clinton rather than the capped spending of a Barack Obama.
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