In an August 11 editorial, The New York Times wrote of “fixing the campaign finance system”: “A good place to start would be reining in 'bundlers' -- the front men who collect piles of smaller checks that grease the campaign machinery and, potentially, the special interests of the hunter-gatherers themselves.” As evidence that Sen. Barack Obama needs to “rein[] in” his bundlers, the Times cited an August 6 Times article that, the editorial board wrote, “reported that despite the Obama campaign's assertions that the senator relies largely on modest contributions, many of them raised on the Internet, one-third of the $340 million he has pulled in has come from donations of $1,000 or more.” But -- like the August 6 article -- the Times did not note in the August 11 editorial that a significantly higher percentage of Sen. John McCain's campaign contributions have equaled or exceeded $1,000.

As Media Matters for America documented, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, contributions of $1,000 or more represented 36.4 percent of Obama's total contributions from individuals, compared with 74.3 percent of McCain's total contributions from individuals:

McCain

Obama

Total of contributions of more than $1,000

$90,030,781

$122,704,308

Total individual contributions through July 28

$121,232,420

$336,740,735

Percentage

74.3%

36.4%

From the August 11 editorial, headlined “Baleful Bundlers”:

Meanwhile, The Times reported that despite the Obama campaign's assertions that the senator relies largely on modest contributions, many of them raised on the Internet, one-third of the $340 million he has pulled in has come from donations of $1,000 or more. Most of these large donations have been collected by 500 or so bundlers, many from industries with interests in Washington, who have each raised at least $50,000.