As the presidential campaigns both shift into ground-game mode, actual news is slow in coming. However, the Boston Herald has an interesting story about John McCain’s VP pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. The paper’s Laura Crimaldi reports that Palin spent $51,000 in taxpayer money to remodel the governor’s mansion in Juneau, as well as her offices in the state capital and Anchorage. The McCain-Palin campaign claims they’re all “routine” expenses.

Also, The Wall Street Journal’s T.W. Farnam examines donations from an often-overlooked group: American Indian tribes. He finds that they’ve given Barack Obama more than $1 million. John McCain hasn’t taken money from tribes ever since his 2006 chairmanship of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

In the closing days of the race, Campaign Money Watch’s new ad on John McCain’s ties to gambling interests is getting attention from the media. National Journal’s Amy Harder is among those recently writing up the ad, following up on reports by The Washington Post, Politico, and the New York Daily News.

Still haven’t seen the ad? Here it is:

John McCain’s ties to gambling interests have been getting a bit more attention these days – look at these recent reports by The Associated Press and CBS News. Now, that relationship is the subject of a new ad by Campaign Money Watch – more details about the ad will be posted here later today, but feel free to watch it right now.

In other news, the Associated Press’ Justin Pritchard and Garance Burke reported this weekend that McCain’s VP pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, presided over a “flawed bidding process” for a massive pipeline project that “narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration.” The story notes that “leader of Palin’s pipeline team had been a partner at a lobbying firm where she worked on behalf of a TransCanada subsidiary. Also, that woman’s former business partner at the lobbying firm was TransCanada’s lead private lobbyist on the pipeline deal.”

Also in the news today are reports of two GOP fundraisers who once played a crucial role but have seen their influence minimized. The first is President Bush – The Washington Post notes that the unpopular incumbent has been relegated to relatively small events for congressional fundraising committees and hasn’t attended many events for specific candidates, most notably McCain.

The other Republican fundraiser down on his luck these days is McCain bundler Harold C. Simmons, who was behind 2004’s infamous Swift Boat ads. His efforts this year to tie Barack Obama to William Ayers haven’t had much impact, The New York Times notes, largely because Democrats were simply better prepared, but also because independent groups have seen their influence decline this election.

We’ve all been there – you’re in a remote area and cellphone coverage is lacking or sometimes non-existent. Most of us resign ourselves to being out of touch for a while.

But when you’re Cindy McCain, you get two cellphone towers built right on your property by Verizon and AT&T – two companies that have given John McCain both hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions and over a dozen lobbyist bundlers.

That’s the story, according to The Washington Post’s James V. Grimaldi, and it’s one that goes to the heart of why John McCain’s lobbyist ties are so important. The article makes it clear that the towers were completely unnecessary in terms of providing coverage, and so few people lived near them that they could never be profitable.

Of course, none of that may matter when the McCains are the customers. Why? Well, Sen. McCain has been a friend to AT&T, Verizon and other telecom giants during his service on the Senate Commerce Committee, where he is a senior member and former chairman. And it turns out that McCain and these two companies have had a healthy exchange of money and lobbyists over the years.

According to a Campaign Money Watch analysis of data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, AT&T employees and PACs have given McCain $480,408.00 since 1989. Verizon has contributed $282,572.00. AT&T is his No. 3 all-time contributor; Verizon is No. 11.

A list of the people who have lobbied for AT&T and Verizon forms a virtual who’s-who of McCain’s campaign staff, advisors and fundraisers. They include: national finance co-chair and bundler Wayne Berman, senior advisor Charlie Black, McCain’s Senate chief of staff, Mark Buse, VP vetter A.B. Culvahouse, campaign manager Rick Davis, deputy RNC chair Frank Donatelli, deputy campaign manager Christian Ferry, congressional liaison John Green, former finance chair Tom Loeffler, mega-bundler Tim McKone, George W. Bush national finance chair Jack Oliver and transition team head William Timmons.

In total, AT&T has paid nearly $20.9 million in lobbying fees to lobbyists now connected to McCain’s campaign, with Verizon paying just over $7 million. Those same lobbyists have bundled $600,000 for McCain.

The best way to illustrate these many, many connections is to visit our home page – click on one of the lobbyists mentioned above to see just how complicated this web (with McCain at the center) really is.

All those connections appear to have helped the McCains get good cellphone reception, even though AT&T and Verizon had to navigate through plenty of red tape to do it. That they’re willing to do such favors for McCain suggests they might expect a lot from him if he were elected to the White House. With so many of their lobbyists in McCain’s orbit, they’d definitely have reason to be hopeful.

Campaign Money Watch has prepared a new ad for television broadcast that brings up a part of John McCain’s past he’d rather the media ignore: The Keating Five. The spot details the help John McCain provided to Charles Keating and the $112,000 in contributions and trips to the Bahamas McCain received from him.

McCain claims the Keating scandal was a turning point for him, an “ah ha” moment that set him on the right path. But as the ad points out, his own campaign manager’s firm received undisclosed payments from Freddie Mac (as recently as last month).

The New York Times’ Julie Bosman has more coverage of the ad, along with a few other third-party advertisements that have cropped up recently.

And, on the day of the vice presidential debate, we learn from the Winston Salem-Journal that John McCain’s VP pick, Sarah Palin, will attend a fundraiser in Greensboro on October 16.

See any stories you think we should mention here? Send them to [email protected].

Barack Obama’s ad hitting John McCain for owning 13 cars – three of them foreign-made – is getting a lot of press in Michigan and elsewhere today.

But some Campaign Money Watch research – picked up by The Huffington Post – shows an even deeper connection between McCain and foreign auto makers: his lobbyist aides have made $2.4 million in lobbying fees helping them enact their agenda in Washington.

The story has all the details, but David Donnelly sums it up nicely: “When John McCain tells Michigan voters that their jobs aren’t coming back, he’s apparently speaking with inside information. He is receiving fundraising help and advice from a half dozen lobbyists who have also made millions working for foreign car manufacturers.”

A key thing to remember about “maverick” John McCain’s acceptance speech last night: Aside from a throwaway reference to naming congressmen who seek earmarks (which is often more about currying favor with local interests than big-money donors), the Republican nominee offered nothing in the way of actual reform – nothing that would truly end Washington’s pay-to-play culture.

As Campaign Money Watch’s David Donnelly said last night: “How can you claim that you’ll fight to reform Washington when you don’t propose any solutions to address the role of big money in politics, or to rein in the power of lobbyists? McCain’s speech was empty and devoid of all detail when it came to draining the money swamp in Washington.”

Reporters are continuing to explore Sarah Palin’s record as Alaska governor, and The Washington Post’s Matthew Mosk turns up the interesting tale of Palin’s aggressive (and so far unsuccessful) push to change Alaska’s health care system by putting small, independent clinics on a level playing field with hospitals: a move “welcomed by the medical groups that helped finance her 2006 campaign and an industry lobbyist who served as a top political adviser.”

In other Palin news, it turns out her selection was more than an attempt to shore up the base and peel away women voters – the GOP is also relying on her to boost fundraising, according to Bloomberg’s Jonathan Salant. But could the plan be backfiring? In the wake of Palin’s acceptance speech, Barack Obama’s campaign pulled in $10 million, The Politico’s Ben Smith reports. The RNC? Just over $1 million.

Given that fundraising disparity, perhaps it’s good news for the Republicans (and bad news for voters) that the McCain campaign plans to keep Palin away from the media. (Perhaps in an undisclosed location? More of the same, indeed.) Time Magazine’s Jay Carney uncovered that when asking McCain aide Nicolle Wallace if Palin would sit for interviews. Her response? “Who cares?”

So now the presidential race begins in earnest. We’ll need help keeping track of everything out there. If you see anything that should be mentioned here, let us know at [email protected].

Before John McCain takes the stage tonight at the Republican National Convention, Campaign Money Watch’s David Donnelly decided to offer up a “prebuttal” to the Republican nominee’s remarks, a big chunk of which are expected to focus on bringing reform to Washington.

In the prebuttal, David explains why that won’t be the case if McCain were to win. Here are some highlights:

“In his acceptance speech, McCain will try to recapture the past reform victories as prologue to what a President McCain would fight for, but the last two years have exposed him as a cynical, old-school politician. McCain has neither a comprehensive, bold reform agenda that will truly change Washington nor the ability to reject the control exercised by his lobbyist-run, big money-fueled candidacy.”

“Sen. McCain has fought shoulder-to-shoulder with my colleagues and me for reforms in a number of states around the country. One might call it organizing. But the stakes in this election are too high, and the opportunities to truly change Washington are too great, to remain silent in the face of Sen. McCain’s hollow calls for reform and his reversal on ending campaign money’s grip over who runs for office and what they do if they win.”

“Sen. McCain will likely rail against the lobbyists in Washington and claim he helped craft a new lobbying and ethics law. Despite some good things required under these reforms, how does preventing a lobbyist from buying McCain a $25 lunch while allowing the same lobbyist to raise $250,000 for McCain’s campaign blunt the power of lobbyists?”

The entire prebuttal is available online as a PDF – definitely worth checking out.

John McCain’s presidential campaign released its technology plan on August 14. While intended to show that McCain isn’t as divorced from modern technology as he’s sometimes portrayed, the plan also serves to highlight his numerous connections to Washington lobbyists. See, it turns out that the people who would benefit most from McCain’s plan have also contributed more than $3.4 million to him over his career, including $1,757,173 in 2008 alone.

That’s just one of many interesting items contained in Campaign Money Watch’s new factsheet on the McCain technology plan. The report also details how much money the lobbyists in McCain’s orbit have made off their tech clients, and lists 39 lobbyists whose firms have made big money off tech clients.

To learn more, read the report online.

Campaign Money Watch, which set off the criticism of John McCain’s upcoming fundraising event in Atlanta with Ralph Reed, is now trying to get more people involved with a petition that calls on McCain to back out of the event and not take any money that Reed manages to raise.

When you get a chance, give it a look and sign it – and then send it along to your friends and family! There’s only a few days left to make your voice heard on this one!

We all know that John McCain has surrounded himself with big-money lobbyists, but a new analysis from Campaign Money Watch shows just how big that money is.

After analyzing data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Campaign Money Watch found that McCain’s lobbyist bundlers, staff members and advisors had earned over $930 million from clients who have contributed to McCain’s campaigns. Those clients have given McCain nearly $11.8 million.

CMW director David Donnelly connects the dots: ““The McCain campaign relies on big money lobbyists, and they’ll rely on him. In the ‘you-scratch-my-back, I’ll-scratch-yours’ world of Washington, $931 million gets the special interests the best government money can buy. But just think of the payday these lobbyists might expect in a McCain Administration.”

For more information, you can read the press release online.