Also on the list, a billionaire casino developer who plans to put a slot parlor in Philadelphia, this, despite Obama's reported opposition to gambling, according to the "Washington Post."
Mosk and MacGillis also report that big Obama bundlers include the director of General Dynamics, a military supplier that has seen profits soar since the onset of the Iraq War and has benefited from at least one Obama earmark, according to the "Post".
Another revealing peak at Obama's powerful fundraisers had come earlier in a February 3, "New York Times" article by Mike McIntire. The "Times" reported that Exelon Corporation, the nation's largest nuclear plant operator is in fact, one of Obama's largest campaign donors.
That piece noted that Exelon chairman John W. Rowe has been an Obama donor and is also chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's largest lobbying group.
The "Times" article did not mention that Exelon chairman Rowe, like several other powerful energy power players also sits on the influential, right wing and neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute's Board, an organization some have called an early and leading voice for regime change in Iraq through military action.
According to a January 2008 article in the "Baltimore Sun" last year Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan accused Exelon and another company of overpricing electricity to achieve "a massive transfer of money" from consumers.
In the end, Exelon agreed to pay an $800 million settlement.
Further evidence for concern came in a recent "USA Today" report by Ken Dilianian that noted lobbyist representing some of America's most powerful corporate interests have been major players in Obama's fundraising apparatus with some members even serving as advisers on his campaign.
That report said that the campaign has received $2.26 million from employees of ten former federal lobbyists.
The "USA Today" report said that those former lobbyist's law firms were paid "$138 million last year to lobby the federal government" according to the article.
This again, despite a common Obama boast, that he is the "only candidate who isn't taking a dime from Washington lobbyist."
In recent months, the Clinton campaign, referring to the Exelon influence, charged that Senator Obama had allowed the nuclear industry to water down a 2006 bill regulating the nuclear power industry.
That charge was met by Obama campaign spokesperson Bill Burton rebutting that his campaign "does not need any lectures on special interests from the candidate who's taken more money from Washington lobbyists than any Republican running from President."
Glass Houses aside, if there were ever a vetting hit job that needed to be done, Charlie and George failed on that point since those Democrats with doubts about Obama often point to these charges of influence by well moneyed insiders, even energy powerhouses like Exelon, as a point of concern for anyone that's thinking about throwing political support behind a very pronounced message of change in Washington's influence laden landscape.
Michael Malbin, director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a non partisan think tank told "USA Today" that "it makes no difference whether the person is a registered lobbyist, if the person is raising money to get access or curry favor."
And, as Ken Silverstein's November, 2006 "Harpers" article, "The Making of a Washington Machine" noted when he quoted an anonymous lobbyist who said, "big donors would not be helping out Obama if they didn't see him as a player."
