One of Barack Obama’s hometown newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times, chimes in with an editorial today inspired by Obama’s half-hour infomercial. The paper notes that the program was the product of the huge funding disparity between Obama (who opted out of public financing) and John McCain (who took $84 million in federal funds).

Most importantly, it joins other papers in calling for a fix to the system: “Public financing of campaigns can give lesser-known candidates a fair shot and, when it’s funded well – as a few states have done – produce more competitive races, more candidates and more newcomers. When Obama broke his pledge to take a public grant, he said he would work to overhaul the political finance system. On Nov. 5, whether or not he’s president-elect, we plan to hold him to that.”

Speaking of the Obama campaign, the New York Times takes a look at how it’s spending its money: 30 minute commercials aside, it spends it quite frugally, it turns out.

The Times joins the Sun-Times in calling for a fix to the system in an editorial that notes this campaign could wind up costing $2 billion. The paper calls for a more aggressive system for dispensing federal matching funds and calls on Congress to limit the power of joint state and national fund-raising committees, which still allow for the writing of huge checks (and granting the access that goes along with them).

Over at Slate, John Dickerson and Chris Wilson engage in an experiment to see how easy it would be for Obama to disclose the source of his small donations: They claim it’s not difficult at all.

Finally, just one reminder of who’s still working hard to pull strings in Washington, according to the Wall Street Journal: “Lobbyists descended on Capitol Hill to push for an economic-stimulus bill that could cost as much as $150 billion…”

Even though only five days remain until Election Day, reports are still coming out about questionable donors to John McCain’s presidential campaign. In The Chicago Tribune, Andrew Zajac, Ray Gibson and Bob Secter write about Shi Sheng Hao, “a virtual unknown in business and political circles.” Since September 2007, he has given $120,000, even though, before then, he had no record of making donations. Hao’s relatives have also given more than $269,000, almost all of it to McCain and the Republican Party.

In other news, a USA Today poll shows that Americans strongly come down on the side of reducing money’s influence in politics. By a 3-to-1 margin, Americans said too much money is being spent on the presidential race. The poll “finds wide support for public financing of presidential campaigns, including a third who say the current voluntary system should be mandatory.”

Finally, Politico’s Jeanne Cummings compiles a list of the best and worst finance decisions of the 2008 elections. Interestingly, No. 2 on the “best” list is John McCain’s finessing of the public financing system in the primaries. Yes, it made sense strategically, but it also raised plenty of legal questions.

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:

MccClatchy Newspapers’ Greg Gordon filed an interesting report yesterday that appears to debunk John McCain’s claim that, after the embarrassment of the Keating Five scandal, he never again pressured regulators on behalf of a friend. In fact, the story says McCain “promoted an Arizona land swap that would’ve benefited a former mentor and partner of the scandal’s central figure.”

The story details McCain’s efforts in the late 1990s to forge a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service that would have benefited the owners of the Spur Cross Ranch, which included a company controlled by former Charles Keating associate Carl Lindner Jr.

Gordon notes that, before the deal fell through, “McCain and an aide pushed for the exchange in more than a half dozen sometimes-testy letters and phone calls up and down the Forest Service’s hierarchy, according to former agency officials and correspondence. McCain’s office even circulated draft legislation that would have overridden the agency’s objection to surrendering national forest land.”

The New York Times’ Larry Rohter reports on a notable absence from McCain’s “economic roundtable” on Monday: lobbyist and former Sen. Phil Gramm. Gramm, along with former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, has been “shunted off to Siberia, not because of policy disagreements but as the result of gaffes that reflected badly on the Republican candidate.” In Gramm’s case, of course, the gaffe was the infamous “nation of whiners” comment.

As has been noted, the Republican National Committee’s fundraising and spending is what’s really keeping McCain in the race at this point. Those of you interested in the nitty-gritty of how the RNC (and its Democratic counterpart) have been spending and raising money lately will appreciate this report from CQ Politics’ Greg Giroux.

National Journal has a new blog, “Under the Influence,” that focuses on the “lobbying and advocacy industry.” One of its first posts, by Alexis Simendinger, examines how lobbyists feel about being a punching bag in this year’s race. The lobbyists in this story call the focus on their profession “silly and arbitrary” and “at its core…political.” The new blog also offers up a PDF of how an Obama administration plans to deal with lobbyists.

Speaking of Obama, USA Today’s Ken Dilanian notes that business executives are warming up to the Democratic nominee. The story reports that among Obama’s donors, “5,845 list “CEO” or “chief executive” in their title, compared with 2,597 of McCain’s donors.” Interestingly, the executives quoted appear to be doing more than cozying up to a front-runner – their decision to give seems motivated by personal beliefs.

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.

The presidential candidates have now released their pre-election campaign finance reports, the last official, comprehensive look we’ll get at their spending and fundraising before Election Day. As the AP’s Jim Kuhnhenn reports, John McCain has been spending about $1.5 million a day and “likely has only $12 million to spend in the next 11 days before the Nov. 4 election.”

As for Obama, his fundraising appears to have slowed off the breakneck pace that allowed him to raise $150 million in September. In the first two weeks of the month, Obama raised $36 million. Still, when combined with money raised by the Democratic National Committee, Obama had $97 million on hand to spend, compared to $84 million for McCain and the Republican National Committee. (While the AP portrayed this as bad news for Obama, the Los Angeles Times’ Dan Morain saw it as further evidence of Obama’s dominance.)

Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor’s Linda Feldmann joins the chorus of reporters writing about the future of campaign finance in the wake of Obama’s blockbuster September. And the Baltimore Sun joins the chorus of newspaper editorial boards calling for the next president and Congress to fix a broken system.

Finally, CQ Politics’ Bart Jansen notes that watchdog groups, in the wake of Obama’s record-breaking haul, are “drafting ways to attempt in the next Congress to curb big-dollar presidential campaign bundlers without discouraging the wave of small-dollar contributions flowing in through the Internet.”

The furor over Sarah Palin’s $150,000 clothing makeover – courtesy of the Republican National Committee – continued on what was a fairly slow news day yesterday. Today, The New York Times’ Patrick Healy and Michael Luo report on how the spending spree may undercut Palin’s “hockey mom” image. Luo and Leslie Wayne also offer up a sidebar on Jeff Larson, the GOP consultant who appears to have been the one doing the actual shopping.

New York Magazine’s Peter Keating offers a primer on what Barack Obama’s money is buying him. The short answer: Tons of ads, an overwhelming advantage on the ground, the ability to fight off John McCain wherever, and whenever, he wants, and a growing sense of inevitability. Keating also assesses the impact of Obama’s $150 million September on the future of the presidential public financing system – he says the current system may effectively be dead, but that when “McCain weeps for campaign-finance reform, his are crocodile tears. For months, McCain has been funneling huge contributions to his campaign through state parties and the Republican National Committee… McCain and the GOP have been trying just as hard as the Dems to circumvent public financing. They just haven’t been as good at it as Obama.”

Finally, the Center for Responsive Politics (the source of much of the campaign finance data we use), offers up a projected final price tag for the 2008 election: $5.3 billion. That figure encompasses not only the presidential race, but also congressional contests. It’s a 27 percent increase over 2004.

Sarah Palin’s understated yet sharp fashion sense has won some attention since John McCain tapped her to be his vice presidential running mate. But it turns out that signature Palin look is courtesy of the Republican National Committee, which, as Politico’s Jeanne Cummings reports, has shelled out $150,000 to dress and accessorize not only Gov. Palin, but her family as well.

As Cummings writes, “The cash expenditures immediately raised questions among campaign finance experts about their legality under the Federal Election Commission’s long-standing advisory opinions on using campaign cash to purchase items for personal use.”

Meanwhile, it looks like the RNC’s main fundraising go-to guy, President Bush, is losing some of his potency. Politico’s Ryan Grim reports that Bush has pulled in “$40 million less than he raised last cycle and $4 million less than Barack Obama raised last month.”

Barack Obama’s $150 million September continues to attract coverage. Today, The Washington Post’s Matthew Mosk and Sarah Cohen point out that only a quarter of the $600 million Obama has raised actually came from people who have donated less than $200 – a reflection of the fact that big money is still essential for anyone seeking high elected office.

Finally, two editorial today – in the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Washington Post – both signal that Obama’s haul confirms that it’s time to fix the public financing system, and that it’s up to the next president to lead the way.

On the heels of reports that Barack Obama had raised $150 million in September, we learned that John McCain had $47 million on hand for October campaigning. But McCain is still, legally, tapping money from other sources.

As The Wall Street Journal’s T.W. Farnam reports, McCain has been using money from his compliance fund – typically used to cover the costs of, well, complying with federal election law – to cover up to 5 percent of his advertising expenses. And it’s a specific 5 percent: The portion of every ad that declares, “I’m John McCain and I approve this message.” McCain is using his compliance fund to an unprecedented degree, spending more in one month than either President Bush or John Kerry spent in all of 2004.

The New York Times’ Michael Luo and Griff Palmer analyze the explosive growth of joint fund-raising committees in this cycle, a development that has placed “an emphasis on the high-end check that we have not seen since the days of soft money,” according to one expert quoted in the story. Watchdog groups worry about these joint committees because they “allow donors to enjoy the clout that comes with writing a single large check.”

Bloomberg’s Jonathan D. Salant also takes note of the fact that big money still plays a big role in presidential politics, noting that 47 bundlers have raised, combined, at least $23.5 million for the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, McCain’s 538 bundlers have raised at least $77.8 million for him. These bundlers are often from industries the candidates routinely criticize on the trail, such as lobbying and financial services.

Finally, in more (hopefully) lighthearted news, Russia’s UN ambassador got a few laughs from his colleagues this week by showing off a fundraising letter he received from McCain’s campaign (campaigns aren’t allowed to accept money from foreign nationals).

Even with two weeks to go until the election, yet another connection between John McCain and troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac has come to light.

Word came out this weekend that Freddie Mac secretly paid Republican firm DCI Group to lobby GOP senators to oppose legislation that would have increased regulations on its lending.

Does DCI Group sound familiar? It might – it turns out that DCI Group’s CEO is Doug Goodyear, who was John McCain’s choice to organize this year’s Republican National Convention. And, as Newsweek reported in May, Goodyear’s firm also made money representing Burma’s brutal military junta.

As for McCain’s VP pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, The New Yorker has a lengthy article on the governor’s rise to prominence among the GOP elite – the very “Good Ol’ Boys Network” she so often decries. Part of that, the story mentions, was her quick desire to cozy up to powerful Washington lobbyists after she became mayor of Wasilla.

Of course, McCain spent Sunday questioning the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s staggering $150 million in September fundraising, saying on Fox News Sunday, “What’s going to happen, particularly if you’ve got an incumbent president, and we no longer stick to the … public financing, which was a result of the Watergate scandal?”

Sen. McCain might want to ask this question of himself, as “sticking to public financing” proved to be, well, a sticky point during the Republican primaries. You may remember that McCain opted into the public financing system for the primaries and then decided to change his mind once his campaign took off. Despite the questionable legality of this move, the FEC eventually let him off the hook.

Finally, The Dallas Morning News explores why an Obama administration, combined with a Democratic Congress, would likely result in new regulations on AT&T. As for a McCain administration, the story notes that “AT&T’s executives and lobbyists have longstanding ties to Mr. McCain,” including the company’s top lobbyist, Tim McKone, who has raised $500,000 for the GOP nominee. The article also points out that some of McCain’s “top campaign aides are former AT&T lobbyists, including Charlie Black and Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager. Some of Mr. McCain’s Senate aides later worked as lobbyists for AT&T.”