Despite protestations from our favorite tweeting and qiking member of Congress, there does appear to be a relationship between supporting the policies of an industry and that industry supporting your campaign. TPM Muckraker, using data from Campaign Money Watch, points out the near immediate contributions from executives of an oil giant, the Hess Corporation, to a joint Republican National Committee-John McCain committee after Sen. McCain switched his position on offshore drilling. (Since Sen. Barack Obama switched his position after the second quarter filings, we’ll have to wait to see if there’s a similar effect.)

Ten senior Hess Corporation executives and/or members of the Hess family each gave $28,500 to the joint RNC-McCain fundraising committee, just days after McCain reversed himself to favor offshore drilling, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

Nine of these contributions, seven from Hess executives and two from members of the Hess family, came on the same day, June 24th, the records show. The total collected in the wake of McCain’s reversal for the fund, called McCain Victory 2008, from Hess execs and family is $285,000.

The Washington Post pointed out last week that contributions from oil executives picked up in the end of June. After the events of the past few days, third quarter campaign reports should be flush with more of these contributions.