The Washington Post’s Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John Solomon report on Sen. John McCain’s ties to lobbyists–especially the 32 lobbyists who are designated fundraisers (the preferred term is bundlers, but there are more colorful terms available to us) for his campaign.

The story does a good job of identifying who these lobbyists are and what interests their firms represent. The Post references this joint study by Public Citizen and the Campaign Finance Institute, but it looks to me like their numbers are different than the Post’s. The study says that McCain has 20 lobbyists among his bundlers, not 32–see this table for the numbers. Public Citizen’s White House For Sale site does say there are 32 lobbyists working as bag men for McCain, but the database doesn’t include a field that identifies which of the dozens and dozens of those bag men are registered to lobby. Still, it’s an incredible resource for looking into the campaigns. I wish we had a similar resource for congressional candidates.

The Post article doesn’t mention McCain’s topping the list of top donors to his campaign so far in the 2008 cycle is Blank Rome LLP, a law firm with a robust lobbying arm.