The Hill News

As of Jan. 31, the Obama campaign listed 444 individuals who had bundled at least $50,000 for the president's re-election effort. We know their names -- John Emerson, an executive at Capital Group; Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks; and Jack Rosen, the head of a New York law firm and chair of the American Jewish Congress, for instance -- and our research shows that more of them come from finance than from any other sector, with lawyers and law firms close behind. We know, too, that they're bundling at least $74 million for Obama's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, which is also devoted to seeing him win a second term.

Is this important? Absolutely. If we as a society have decided that the names of campaign contributors of more than $200 should be made public in the interest of knowing who is financing our candidates, then it's doubly true that the public should know who is dialing those contributors to solicit funds, gathering up the checks and d! elivering them en masse to the candidate. 

These are people to whom the campaign has good reason to be especially grateful. In fact, in one administration after another, a sizable number of bundlers go on to plum jobs within the administration. According to the Washington Post, more than half of Obama’s $500,000+ fundraisers from 2008 have been given administration jobs, while nine more were appointed to presidential boards and committees. At least 24 Obama bundlers were given posts as foreign ambassadors.

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