This is what John McCain and his advisers believe to be needed now, as they contemplate their disappointing first quarter financial performance.  How such additional "precision" in bundling money is achieved is left, in news accounts, mostly to the imagination.  Apparently, the bundlers lacked sufficient clear goals and "accountability." 

     In other words, McCain's campaign did not properly instruct their bundlers in the art, and the bundlers, working with whatever guidance they had, performed poorly.  And in considering what this means, it should not be forgotten what a "bundler" is:  a specialist in massaging out of a network of large donors substantial numbers of contributions, each as close as possible to the maximum allowable amount.

     The bundler provides a brokering service essential to the success of a Presidential campaign—success in raising the large contributions that, only days ago, Norm Ornstein and Tony Corrado claimed to have become that much less important after McCain got his law.  McCain is not complaining that there are small donations to be had, and he is, we assume, receiving his share.  The big money is going elsewhere, very much to his competitive advantage and even after his law indexed the maximums up a couple of notches.

     This is not a call to reform skeptics to revel in schadenfreude.  But in this situation, in its bearing on reform issues, there are some preliminary conclusions to entertain:

1. Big Donor v. Big Giver.  We hear how the large donor has lost ground and influence to the small donor.  Ornstein and Corrado believe this, which is possible only if the role of the bundler, a greatly enlarged one in the regulated system, is overlooked.  Bundling is an inevitable consequence of limitation:  producing the necessary volume of money, when any one contribution must remain with the specified limit, is hard and necessary work, and some—the bundlers—must do it. 

2. Undue Influence.  Do bundlers have influence to rival the large donor?  It is not a question requiring exhaustive argument.  Of course they do—and more.  And how much influence will a good McCain bundler have now, in this time of pressing need?

Influence depends on a wide range of factors:  the last guarantor needed for a loan, who guarantees for no more than what is permitted by the contribution limits but whose guarantees saves the last minute borrowing, is a both a large donor like any other but even more influential.  A McCain blunder with a fine touch can also expect to be remembered.  And he will be:  since the McCain campaign is insisting on greater accountability, which means that performance will be monitored and recognized.

3. Public Financing.  McCain’s law did no favors to the public financing scheme, and as his candidacy was launched, he chose to abandon support for a set of amendments to the law to remedy its failings.  He gave up his considerable standing on the issue; he seemed to be playing a purely political hand, the frontrunner secure in his fundraising whose principal objective was to avoid offense to the anti-campaign finance reform wing of his party.  Maybe this was a mistake?

     McCain’s candidacy was built in some fair measure on his commitment to campaign finance reform.  It also seems fated to expose his reform’s flaws.  Some of this exposition may prove dramatic, played out in the struggles of his own campaign.

Bob Bauer