Three cheers for the Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, who definitely understands what's going on. In "Derail These Fundraisers," she puts her finger precisely on what is so corrupt about Washington's pay-to-play culture, and why real reform is needed, and could make a big difference.

A report in today's Bloomberg news makes the same point we have here, that House majority leader contenders Reps. Roy Blunt of Missouri and John Boehner of Ohio are both awfully close to Tom DeLay and K Street:

"The election process has turned into an incumbency protection process in which lobbyists attend PAC fundraisers to raise money for incumbents so they can drown potential opponents, thus creating war chests that convince candidates not to run and freeing up incumbents to spend more time in Washington PAC fundraisers. So, in effect, this city is building a wall of money to protect itself from America."

Political contributions are becoming a hot topic in a congressional race in Connecticut. Incumbent Rep. Simmons is dogging challenger Joe Courtney over contributions he received from Rep. Pelosi's PAC. Simmons is getting heat for the $39,000 that he took from DeLay over the years (and which he refuses to return). More on the story can be found at the Norwich Bulletin.

MyDD.com has an interview with Michael Schiavo on what he's doing know and his take on why some politicians (Tom DeLay for example) politicized and intruded upon his family's private matters and personal decisions.

A Daily DeLay reader passed along a note that yesterday the McGuireWoods LLP PAC filed an amended mid-year report for 2005 showing the PAC failed to itemize almost 200 contributions totaling nearly 60 pages of additions to the report.

What’s the significance? This is the same law firm that advices Tom DeLay and ARMPAC on how to comply with federal campaign finance laws.

The headline of this blog posting will tick off Ohio Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R). She's the one, a week ago or so, called disgraced lobbyist and DeLay-pal Jack Abramoff, who told the Columbus Dispatch, "We think he is a creep, and we hate him."

Through the first three quarters of the year, indicted former Majority Leader Tom DeLay led all House members in the amount of PAC money he took, according to this analysis (pdf) from the Federal Elections Commission. He raised $920,207 from PACs.

John B. Judis at The New Republic has a good piece on just how much Roy Blunt learned from Tom DeLay about money and politics:

"[Blunt]" owes his rise in the House to the Texas congressman. But he may also one day blame DeLay for his fall, because DeLay appears to have taught him not only how to count votes and woo lobbyists, but arguably how to play fast and loose with campaign finance ethics....