We all know that candidates for the Presidency and Congress alike are making the calls to the small, elite group of donors known for writing four-figure checks in election years. But other major avenues for political money are the independent 527 groups who can raise an unlimited amount of money and spend it at will, provided they follow requirements to disclose the source of that money.

No one ever accused the campaign finance reform movement of being long on sizzle and short on substance, but there's one former fundraising heavyweight who's seen the political money machine from the inside and is aiming to infuse the popular perception of dialing for dollars with a little sex appeal.

In these campaign contribution-limited times, the big-money bundlers to the presidential campaigns are worth their weight in gold (check or credit card also accepted). McCain, whose Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act helped establish current federal campaign contribution limits, is out-raising Obama on the bundler front but neither man is exactly eschewing the practice that many have called a loophole for big donor influence.

We've noted on several occasions the major loophole provided by Democratic and Republican conventions for corporations to flex their contribution muscles. Conventions don't fit under the guidelines that restrict corporate giving to candidates and parties, so the multi-million dollar events are a good opportunity for corporate interests to give generously - and reap the benefits.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) values his reputation as a reformer and Sen. Barack Obama (D) has boasted about the transparency of his campaign but the New York Times is a little disappointed in both of their efforts on the donor/bundler disclosure front. After a nudge from the paper the Obama campaign updated its publicly available list of bundlers but should they need hounding from the press?

I had no more than a passing relationship with science classes in college but I stuck around long enough to absorb the following: "the plural of anecdote is not data." I don't want to come down too hard on Jim Mills at The Hill, but I think he'd do well to refer to this little aphorism before he picks up his hammer again to drive a stake into the heart of campaign finance reform.

The editorial boards the Washington Post and the New York Times are none too pleased with the Supreme Court ruling against the Millionaire's Amendment provision in BCRA that provided rescue funds to candidates facing wealthy, self-financing opponents. Read on for excerpts from the editorials.

From the Post:

Public Campaign Action Fund's David Donnelly has articles in the Huffington Post and the Minneapolis Star Tribune discussing John McCain's lobbyist woes, an the reignited controversy over McCain's involvement in the awarding of a lucrative Air Force contract to European-owned Airbus over Boeing.

Experts will tell you that it would be years before American consumers would seen any benefit from the proposed offshore oil drilling President Bush is attempting to push through Congress. So why is Senator John McCain (R) pushing the idea on the campaign trail as a solution to rising gas prices? ThinkProgress speculates on McCain's change of heart -- and the money he's taking in from the oil and gas industry.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy of the Brennan Center for Justice writes in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the popular, if inaccurate, shorthand for the Buckley v. Valeo decision, "money is speech" and how it has penetrated discussion about campaign finance at all levels, distorting debate and hurting efforts to reverse some of Buckley's more damaging consequences.