On the heels of reports that Barack Obama had raised $150 million in September, we learned that John McCain had $47 million on hand for October campaigning. But McCain is still, legally, tapping money from other sources.

As The Wall Street Journal’s T.W. Farnam reports, McCain has been using money from his compliance fund – typically used to cover the costs of, well, complying with federal election law – to cover up to 5 percent of his advertising expenses. And it’s a specific 5 percent: The portion of every ad that declares, “I’m John McCain and I approve this message.” McCain is using his compliance fund to an unprecedented degree, spending more in one month than either President Bush or John Kerry spent in all of 2004.

The New York Times’ Michael Luo and Griff Palmer analyze the explosive growth of joint fund-raising committees in this cycle, a development that has placed “an emphasis on the high-end check that we have not seen since the days of soft money,” according to one expert quoted in the story. Watchdog groups worry about these joint committees because they “allow donors to enjoy the clout that comes with writing a single large check.”

Bloomberg’s Jonathan D. Salant also takes note of the fact that big money still plays a big role in presidential politics, noting that 47 bundlers have raised, combined, at least $23.5 million for the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, McCain’s 538 bundlers have raised at least $77.8 million for him. These bundlers are often from industries the candidates routinely criticize on the trail, such as lobbying and financial services.

Finally, in more (hopefully) lighthearted news, Russia’s UN ambassador got a few laughs from his colleagues this week by showing off a fundraising letter he received from McCain’s campaign (campaigns aren’t allowed to accept money from foreign nationals).

On this blog, we’ve already looked at John McCain’s ties to Russia through one of his top aides, Charlie Black. We’ve also discussed his ties to Georgia through another lobbyist, Randy Scheunemann. Now, the questionable ties of his campaign manager, Rick Davis, are under scrutiny.

In a piece in The Nation, Ari Berman and Mark Ames write that Davis “advanced what became a key victory for the Kremlin: gaining control over the small but strategically important country of Montenegro.” The country is now known as “Moscow on the Mediterranean” and is dominated by Russian influences.

The lengthy article goes on to note McCain’s and Davis’ ties to a shady aluminum magnate who doubles as a surrogate for Vladimir Putin. It’s a pretty tangled web involving Davis’ partner, Paul Manafort, a Ukrainian oligargch, and plenty of international intrigue. The story suggests that McCain was playing both sides of the issue – praising one Ukrainian political party with Western sympathies, while knowing that some of his most prominent lobbyist allies were aiding the pro-Russian opposition.

Berman and Ames’ final paragraph sums up the problem the best: “The story of how McCain’s closest aides and employees have been undermining his vociferously expressed opposition to Putin and Russia’s oligarchs offers a highly disturbing preview of what a McCain administration might look like. When McCain’s campaign proclaims “country first,” one has to wonder, Which country? The one with the highest bidder?”

Dominating the headlines this morning is a New York Times report about McCain campaign manager and lobbyist Rick Davis’ ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. No, this is not a repeat. While the Times’ original reporting had Davis on the mortgage giants’ payroll until 2005, the new report finds that, after that arrangement ended, Davis’ firm received $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until last month – when a federal takeover brought its lobbying to an end.

While the money went to Davis’ firm, it was really all about Davis himself, and his closeness to John McCain: “No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.”

As recently as Sunday, McCain had claimed Davis’ connection to Freddie Mac ended years ago.

Davis isn’t the only one of McCain’s Lobbyists under the microscope. The Chicago Tribune’s Andrew Zajac has been taking an exhaustive look at Charlie Black’s ties to a Russian think tank with ties to Vladimir Putin – here’s his latest report.

A key line in Zajac’s piece quietly attacks the McCain camp’s assertion that since Black, Davis and company are former lobbyists, there’s nothing wrong with their influential campaign positions: “It beggars belief that his retirement marks a departure from the Washington influence business for Black, since he retains other business interests at the juncture of the private sector and the federal government and he remains a prince of the capital’s permanent government.

Meanwhile, the New York Times’ Michael Luo looks at the work of bundlers who once backed Hillary Clinton and their efforts to do the same for Barack Obama, even as some of those donors are feeling the impact of the recent market meltdown.

Hot on the heels of a new Obama ad on McCain’s support of insurance companies headquartered in Bermuda, the Wall Street Journal’s T.W. Farnam notes the financial support those firms have given McCain: “A few months after Sen. McCain’s visit there, top insurance executives held a fund-raiser on the island that netted an estimated $50,000. Since then, Sen. McCain has raised an additional $70,000 from employees of Bermudan insurers. Sen. Obama, in contrast, has gotten $12,500 in total from employees of those companies.”

Any suggestions on what we should be talking about here? E-mail us at [email protected].

We kick off with one item from yesterday we didn’t get around to: Campaign Money Watch has asked John McCain to back out of a scheduled August 18 fundraiser hosted by Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition head who also was part of Jack Abramoff’s elaborate scheme to defraud American Indian tribes. While Reed avoided prosecution, his actions did play a role in his primary loss in the 2006 Georgia lieutenant governor’s race. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has more.

Our letter to the Justice Department got a good bit of exposure yesterday that will hopefully lead to an even brighter spotlight being placed on bundlers who go too far to round up donations: Greg Gordon’s report for McClatchy Newspapers appears in the Miami Herald, the Arizona Republic and a host of other papers across the country.

The New York Times takes a look at McCain’s attitude toward Russia, noting the role played by lobbyist and advisor Randy Scheunemann.

The AFL-CIO has latched onto Rick Davis’ role in the deal that allowed German-owned DHL to take over a shipping facility in Wilmington, Ohio, where 8,000 jobs are now on the chopping block as the company seeks to offload some of its work to UPS. The umbrella union organization has labeled Davis a “job-killer” and is calling on McCain to fire him.

Prepare to be offended, Twin Cities residents: The Politico’s Richard T. Cullen writes that lobbyists are less enthusiastic about attending this year’s GOP convention in Minneapolis. The reasons? Sure, the city is further away from Washington than New York or Philly – homes of the past two Republican shindigs – but also, in the words of one lobbyist, “Minneapolis is a nice city, but it doesn’t quite have the environment and reputation of a New York City, and I think 2004 was a unique convention and a lot of it had to do with where it was.” Another lobbyist: “Overall, Republicans have an intensity problem.”

Finally, a reminder from Washington Post columnist Jeffrey H. Birnbaum that, no matter what happens in the upcoming election, the lobbyists aren’t going anywhere. It’s going to take a sustained effort to reduce the power of special interests.