The crooked lobbyist could have gotten 11 years behind bars but the judge looked kindly on Abramoff's role as a key witness in the FBI's influence-peddling probe.

With Abramoff's help, the Justice Department has won corruption convictions against a parade of lawmakers, Bush administration figures and Capitol Hill aides.

Abramoff admitted trading luxury golf junkets, expensive meals, skybox tickets and other gifts for political favors. The scandal shook Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to Capitol Hill and contributed to the Republicans' loss of Congress in 2006.

His lawyers were hoping for a sentence of less than four years. Like a lot of crooks who end up facing the music, Abramoff shed his arrogance and hubris and appealed to the judge for leniency. Boo hoo.

He said even he is shocked to look back on what his career had become. But he said he was "not a bad man" and pleaded for leniency.

"It is hard to see the exact moment that I went over the line but, looking backwards, it is amazing for me to see how far I strayed and how I did not see it at the time," Abramoff wrote. "So much of what happens in Washington stretches the envelope, skirts the spirit of the rules, and lives in the loopholes. But even by those standards, I blundered farther than even those excesses would allow."

So that closes an ugly chapter in our government's history. But what next? It's nice that Abramoff, Bob Ney, J. Steven Griles and others are in jail, but the real question is whether this scandal will help alter a lobbying system that makes it so easy for this kind of corruption to thrive.

From NRO's The Corner:

Campaign manager Rick Davis just told reporters that McCain raised $27 million in July and had $21.4 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.

MORE: Davis says the RNC raised $26 million in July and has $75 million in cash on hand.

STILL MORE: As far as the campaign's money is concerned, Davis stresses that since McCain is accepting federal funds, he will have to spend all his primary-season money by the time he gets the money next month. "We are definitely on a decline curve where we will be spending more than we are raising now," Davis said.

So that's $21 Million that McCain needs to spend before the convention, plus whatever he brings in between now and then. I see an advertising blitz in Ohio, Michigan, Colorado and Virginia in the near future.

McCain also beat Obama to the numbers earlier. Obama, of course, raised $52M in June, but the bottom line is that McCain has plenty of money to run a competitive campaign.

Sen. Barack Obama far and away outpaces any other presidential candidate in the total amount of money he has raised for the Democratic primary and the general election, having raised almost $340 million. But Sen. Obama also leads the other candidates in another, more dubious, category: most money raised from big money donations of $1,000 or more. Fully one-third, or $112 million, of Obama's fund-raising total has come from a network of big donors, bundlers, and the well-connected, including lobbyists.

The New York Times took a look at the records and finds that Sen. Obama's big money network contains over 500 bundlers, fund-raisers who combine smaller donations into one larger one, thereby skirting campaign contribution limits. One hundred and thirty of those are lawyers, many of whom work for firms with lobbying operations. Each of the bundlers had brought in at least $50,000 to the Obama campaign. Three dozen collected $500,000 each. Six brought in over $1 million; and a couple raised more than $2 million. The Times further reports that many of the bundlers and well-heeled donors to the Obama campaign are long-time Democratic Party insiders and activists that Sen. Obama began courting soon after securing his Senate seat in 2004.

Sen. Obama has billed his campaign finance operation as a new model for publicly financed campaigns. He touts the millions he has been able to raise from small donations of $200 or less as a justification for his reversal of his promise to accept federal funding for the general election campaign. But just like every coin and bill that comes in to the Obama campaign, his fund-raising operation has two sides. It is unsurprising that a politician with national aspirations would have high-powered and moneyed interests backing his campaign. Sen. John McCain certainly does. For Sen. Obama, however, who has presented himself as an atypical politician and the bringer of a new kind of politics, the revelation that his campaign funding is more ordinary than once believed is a bit more damaging. Obama needs to maintain his image as a post-partisan figure to balance questions about his relatively short resume.

No, really:

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.
...

"The timing was significant," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain's oil industry contributions. "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money."

Well, wouldn't it be worse (and more suspicious) if McCain had changed his policy after the increase of funds? Of course it would.

Brian Rogers, a McCain campaign spokesman, said he considers any suggestion that McCain weighed fundraising into his calculation on drilling policy "completely absurd." Rogers noted that oil and gas money in June still accounted for a very small fraction of the $48 million raised by the campaign and by the Republican National Committee through its Victory Fund.

Partisans will believe what they want, or spin it for political advantage, but it's clear that offshore drilling and increasing domestic energy production is one of the few bright spots for the GOP this year. McCain would have and should have done this regardless of the money. And it should be no surprise that the industry, which previously didn't like McCain for his opposition to ANWR drilling, takes a look at both candidates, especially Obama's talk of taxing windfall profits, and decide they like McCain better.

Here's a surprise for Matthew Mosk and the rest of the media: Special Interests give money to those politicians that best represent their interests. The Sierra Club backs Obama, and violently opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Do their contributions and endorsement constitute a quid pro quo as well? Of course not, unless one wants to assume bad faith from all politicians.

Further analysis of the June fund-raising numbers reveals that Barack Obama raised more money in a single day that John McCain did for the whole month. Now that's a money bomb. The totals for June now show Obama raising $54 million while McCain clocked in with $22 million. So that's the income part of the budget, what about the expenses? Via Politico:

The two candidates spent about the same amount of money in June--Obama spent $26 million and McCain spent $27 million.

So McCain spent $5 million more than he had? Good thing he's got the RNC to help bankroll the campaign. What the two candidates spent their money on is also telling:

McCain in June spent $16 million on advertising, compared to Obama's reported $5 million. Meanwhile payroll expenses amounted to $2.3 million while McCain's hovered around $724,000.

McCain sees the election as an air warm, outspending Obama by more than 3:1 on commercials. Obama is fighting on the ground, staffing a huge amount of field offices. It's also worth noting that the average donation to Obama's campaign came in at $68, where as McCain's supporters donated an average of $138. In other words, a whole lot more people gave to Obama.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, met with a group of 25 prominent supporters and fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Clinton at a private home in Westchester County, NY. The group included several so-called "Hillraisers," each of whom have raised in excess of $100,000 for Clinton's failed primary campaign. The meeting was repeatedly sought by the Hillary supporters and is at least the second such meeting between backers of Clinton and the McCain campaign.

An organizer of the meeting, Amy Siskind, said that the pro-Hillary groups represented pledged to help deliver, "hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of votes," to McCain if the groups find areas of agreement between themselves and his campaign.

News of the meeting will not be comforting to the campaign of Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama, who has been trying to close ranks behind his campaign after a contentious primary season. Clinton has endorsed Obama and has made fund raising and campaign appearances with him. She has also asked her supporters to get behind Obama's campaign. Still, polls show that Obama could lose a portion of Clinton's support in the general election, and the McCain campaign has been trying to exploit the differences between Obama and Clinton's supporters.

That's the conclusion of Patrick Ruffini, a conservative media blogger and veteran of many GOP fundraising campaigns. I haven't seen any official numbers out, but the rumor is that Obama's June haul is about $30 million, which is significantly below expectations. Patrick points out when and where Obama's big numbers came from:

Obama's fundraising surge came during and around primary elections with the outcome in doubt. Once it seemed he had it wrapped up, his online fundraising fell off dramatically. As we've seen, online fundraising can be hugely tempermental and event-driven. Hillary, who would normally raise $200,000 - $400,000 per email in slow periods, would see $10 million over a couple of days after winning a key primary like Pennylavania.

Though he will undoubtedly rise in the August-November timeframe, it's unclear to me if Obama will be able to recreate that same energy from the primary if the race remains outside the margin, or it falls back into the margin but with Obama's momentum deflated.

Fundraising-wise, this could look more like a "normal" election like 2000 or 2004 rather than the transformative election the primary was and the Obama campaign was banking on. This means Obama may have to break a sweat to match McCain and the RNC's money in the fall. And his massive email list, which could be out making calls and knocking on doors, may be diverted into heavy fundraising.

If Ruffini is right, Obama needs some element of danger, some way of convincing his supporters that he could actually lose to John McCain. Apparently, if these numbers are correct, they don't really believe that's possible. In order to win, Obama needs to convince his supporters he could lose. I know that's overly simplistic and borderline lame, but it was extremely fun to say it that way.

This tracks the 2004 campaign but with the roles reversed. Then it was Bush who had the appearance of an overwhelming money juggernaut, but Kerry did catch up over the summer of 2004 and they ended up extremely close in the money race. Lesson to Obama: Don't count on a money advantage in any situation. And if that's true, the public funding gambit will have been a blunder. And to think he broke a possible pledge to give it up.

Insert Dr. Evil pinky finger to end of mouth: $95 Meelyun Dollars! CBS News:

Davis said that the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee had $95 million cash on hand at the end of July – $26.7 million for the McCain campaign and $67.8 million for the RNC. (McCain's figure is down from the $31.5 million he had on hand at the end of May.)

He said McCain raised "just over $22 million" in the month of June – more than the candidate has raised in any previous month.

Davis also said that "the McCain campaign spends about $10 million a month less to run their campaign" than Obama, which he suggested has helped the campaign of the presumptive GOP nominee close the cash-on-hand gap on his rival.

As the article states at the end, the last time we heard from Obama he had raised $23 million in May and had $43 million cash in hand.

Two points here obviously. One is that those that were impressed by Obama's fundraising numbers and were looking at that as a reason to choose him over Hillary are probably getting a queasy feeling in their stomachs. Unless Obama can pull a rabbit out of a hat, his numbers will not look that impressive next to McCain here.

My own queasy feeling relates to the part that I bolded above. As I recall Kerry ran a very efficient campaign and even had money left over. But he lost. I'm hoping McCain remembers that and remember that the election is not won by the candidate that most efficiently manages money.

But still, it appears that McCain's moves dating back to a year ago, when his campaign was on the ropes and he was bleeding money are still paying off. He has a tight disciplined campaign, that's not a bad thing.

Update: I spoke with a well-placed source in Hillary Clinton's campaign, who told me a couple of interesting things. He said Obama will definitely not be picking a VP just to win a state, and that the short list now includes Hillary, Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, and maybe Chuck Hagel. I've got a good feeling about this.


He also said, as I have, that Obama is doing so surprisingly well against McCain that he can pretty much pick his own ticket, but that the longer the choice takes, the better it is for Hillary.


Also, here's video of Bayh telling Andrea Mitchell today that he would say yes if asked to be VP.


The Obama campaign has sent out the final details on the candidate's first joint campaign appearance with Senator Hillary Clinton.

CHICAGO, IL- Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama will hold a "Unite for Change" Rally this Friday in Unity, New Hampshire. Both candidates received exactly 107 votes in the western New Hampshire town in the primary. See below for important event details regarding ticketing and parking.

Full text of the press release follows the jump. There's one detail that is omitted here, and that is whether or not Barack Obama will announce Hillary Clinton as his selection for Vice President.

This comes on the heels of Barack Obama's appeal to donors, Wednesday, to help pay down Hillary's campaign debt, and a reported meet 'n greet today between Obama and Hillary's big donors. There's magic in the air!

Ordinarily, I'm not a betting man, but one of my readers issued a challenge that I couldn't just ignore. Since tomorrow is so fraught with symbolism, I have a feeling in me bones, so I'd like to give my readers, and fellow writers, a chance to get in on this. To find out why I'm so sure there will be a Dream Ticket, just click the words Dream Ticket.

John McCain's campaign has released a new web video mash-up. It's simply Barack Obama, in his own words, all in context. The one minute video is titled "Words." It takes on Obama's most recent public lie.