Sweet extra: Obama campaign caves. Ends stonewalling over who runs Hopefund.

NEW YORK–After refusing to answer questions about who makes decisions regarding handing out political money from Barack Obama’s HOPEFUND political action committee–stonewalling–it turns out a central player is Obama presidential deputy manager Steve Hildebrand. Hat-tip on this to the Washington Post. LINK

Obama, who talks a good one about governmental transparency, presides over an operation that refused to identify the responsible individuals once questions surfaced following the Nov. 15 filing of the latest HOPEFUND report.

A CQ reporter broke the story about how Obama was using HOPEFUND money to salt the campaign warchests of political allies in the early presidential voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. I wrote a column raising the hypocrisy issue–that Obama is using money from HOPEFUND collected from federal lobbyists and other political action committees–sources he now disdains for his White House bid. A Washington Post reporter wrote a story suggesting that using HOPEFUND money to help bolster Obama’s presidential prospects at the least seems to have been skirting the letter if not the spirit of the campaign finance law.

The Clinton campaign put out a memo urging reporters to find out who was behind the HOPEFUND operation. The Obama team used that as a pretext (we don’t answer Clinton questions) to refuse to identify any HOPEFUND decision makers to the reporters who had already written stories before the Clinton memo was sent around.

Excerpts from the Washington Post….

An Obama campaign spokesman last week said that “there is no connection” between the PAC donations and the presidential campaign.

But Bob Bauer, the private counsel for both Obama’s campaign and Hopefund, said yesterday that campaign workers were involved over the summer in identifying and recommending possible recipients when Hopefund was deciding how to spend its remaining money. In particular, Bauer said, senior campaign strategist Steve Hildebrand was consulted “multiple times” on potential donations.

Hildebrand was a paid consultant at Hopefund last year and is now a deputy campaign manager.

“He was being paid in part to help us identify targets of opportunity, and to the extent there was any one person who had an overview of what we were trying to accomplish, it was Steve Hildebrand,” Bauer said. Asked if other campaign officials also made recommendations, Bauer added, “I have no doubt.”

LINK(Sweet column)

Obama making donations to pols in early states from PAC warchest. HOPEFUND took federal lobbyist money.

HIGHLAND PARK, ILL.In the last six months, White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) used his HOPEFUND political action committeewhich has accepted contributions from federal lobbyiststo make donations to Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, states with the first presidential votes in January.

The latest Federal Election Commission report, filed on Nov. 15 and covering the period between July and Nov. 5, reveals that after a long stretch of little activity, Obama picked up the pace of donations from his HOPEFUND warchest in recent months with heavy giving in September and October.

The donations were made to several categories of Democrats: Senate Democratic incumbents; House Democrats who back Obamas presidential bid; unpledged contenders from early states; selected members of the Congressional Black Caucus; some early states party warchests and five Illinois lawmakers.

Obama decided not to take money from federal lobbyists or political action committees money when he opened his presidential campaign fund in February.

The Obama ban on taking money from these sources is a central theme in his campaign and is featured in his stump speech and political advertising. He is critical of chief rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for accepting money from federal lobbyists in her campaign.

However, Obama did take money from these sources for his state senate, U.S. House and 2004 U.S. Senate race, his own HOPEFUND political action committee and his 2010 U.S. Senate re-election war chest. The latest report shows he is using money gained from sources he now will not touch to donate to players who could help his presidential bid.

Alex Knott of Congressional Quarterly, in a story published last week, notes that Obama has been the most aggressive of presidential candidates in using his leadership PAC to help the campaigns of state and local candidates and not coincidentally, the funds spent that way have gone to Democrats in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. More than one-third of his leadership PAC money is being used this way.

Knott writes, While the practice of using these PACS to cement a politicians power base while also helping their partys chances in elections is nothing new, Obama and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. are the only ones among the Democratic candidates to make active use of this. Among Republican Presidential candidates, only former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani appears to be using leadership PAC money this way, albeit to a much lesser extent.

Hopefund, established by Obama, made a total of $118,000 in donations to local parties and politicians through Nov. 5, the campaign reported this week. Even though federal campaign finance law requires that leadership PAC donations be spent only on party-building, and not for the benefit of the donors own political prospects, it appears that Obama faces little risk of accusations that he is skirting the law, Knott writes.

According to an analysis by CQs MoneyLine, about 60 percent of all Hopefund money contributed this cycle has gone to states besides Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Yet even a good chunk of the $329,000 Hopefund has given to campaigns for Senate and House races $57,000, to be exact has been heavily focused on those states holding early presidential voting events.

“The PAC has donated to all four Democrats in Iowas congressional delegation Sen. Tom Harkin , who is up for re-election in 2008, and Reps. Bruce Braley , Dave Loebsack and Leonard L. Boswell as well as Selden E. Spencer, who is challenging Rep. Tom Latham in one of the states two Republican-held districts. Hopefund also gave donations to Paul W. Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter , the Democrats who in 2006 captured both of New Hampshires U.S. House seats from Republican incumbents, Knott writes.

Obamas Hopefund also gave $5,000 last June to a political action committee controlled by South Carolina political power Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) , whose endorsement is being sought by all Democratic rivals. Obama donated to the warchests of Illinois House members Melissa Bean; Bobby Rush; Danny Davis; Luis Gutierrez and Jesse Jackson Jr.