Since the presidential race has turned into an episode of MTV Cribs - next up, web ads with seizure inducing editing of million dollar homes - I figured that it would be worth while to look at the personal financial disclosures of John McCain and Barack Obama to see what information we can find on their houses.

Oh wait, what’s that? Personal financial disclosure rules don’t require the listing of residential properties. That’s why no one knew about Chris Dodd’s favorable mortgage from Countrywide or Rep. Laura Richardson’s two foreclosures.

Looking at Obama and McCain’s form I can see that some of McCains eight to eleven residential properties are listed under Cindy McCain’s name while Obama’s home is not listed. Here are some of the ones listed on the McCain financial disclosure:

Residential Real Estate Held for Investment, Coronado, CA - Over $1 million

Sedona Property, Cornville, AZ (Two Parcels. Parcel 1: Residence and Guest House. Parcel 2: Guest House.) - Over $1 million

Those are only two residential property listings that appear in both candidates financial disclosures. There are few proposals flying around Congress to require home disclosure on personal financial disclosures. Perhaps they should address this.

On another personal financial disclosure related topic, I noticed the Mark Nicholas used our Fortune 535 site to compare the net worth of Barack Obama and John McCain. Unfortunately, the site uses as its most recent filing, the 2007 report, which represents the year 2006. This was prior to the huge profits made by Obama through royalties from his latest book. So, if you want to get the most recent average net worth, you’d have to look at his 2008 report (covering 2007), in which he reports well over a million in assets.

John McCain is another story. McCain is the only member of Congress who still checks a box that lists asset value at “Over $1 million”. He does this under an exemption rule allowing the filer to not identify the actual range, over $1 million, if the asset is held by a spouse or dependent child. I should reiterate that McCain is the only member of Congress who claims this exemption and fills out the “Over $1 million” box for many assets. John Kerry, Dianne Feinstein, Jane Harman, and Nancy Pelosi all list the highest accurate value range for their spouse’s large holdings; John McCain does not. Considering this, John McCain, when combined with the actual value of Cindy McCain’s holdings, is worth much more than the amount we extracted from his personal financial disclosures for Fortune 535.

Bottom line: Obama worth more than listed and McCain worth way more.

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This year’s presidential election started in January 2007 and continues apace with the field of over a dozen in the two major parties narrowed down to two. By the end of May 2008,  all of these candidates spent over $900 million in attempting to reach the White House. We always talk about where this money comes from, the New York Times created this awesome graphic to tell us where it goes. Also check out the accompanying story:

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Competition among bundlers is getting so competitive that fundraisers are getting their children to chip in. These aren’t grown children by the way; these are toddlers, babies, and prepubescent children without incomes - unless of course they’re working as cockney bootblacks (“Straight shine’s a nickel; super buff’s a dime!”). The Washington Post reported yesterday on this effort by bundling donors using their children and nieces and nephews as ways of funneling ever more money into the coffers of their favored candidate.

Such campaign donations from young children would almost certainly run afoul of campaign finance regulations, several campaign lawyers said. But as bundlers seek to raise higher and higher sums for presidential contenders this year, the number who are turning to checks from underage givers appears to be on the rise.

"It’s not difficult for a banker or a trial lawyer or a hedge fund manager to come up with $2,300, and they’re often left wanting to do more," said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics. "That’s when they look across the dinner table at their children and see an opportunity."

These children can be as young as two years old as is this Toddler for Obama:

Elrick Williams’s toddler niece Carlyn may be one of the youngest contributors to this year’s presidential campaign. The 2-year-old gave $2,300 to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

So did her sister and brother, Imara, 13, and Ishmael, 9, and her cousins Chan and Alexis, both 13. Altogether, according to newly released campaign finance reports, the extended family of Williams, a wealthy Chicago financier, handed over nearly a dozen checks in March for the maximum allowed under federal law to Obama.

The Federal Election Commission does not explicitly set an age limit on donors however these donations will likely have to be returned. Obama’s campaign has already stated their intent to return the contributions from these children. Other campaigns will similarly have to figure out what to do with money donated from little kids.

The real problem here may lie with the parents who are going to have to explain to their kids that they gave their Christmas present to Barack Obama or Rudy Guiliani. For the non-voting under-10 population $2,300 could be used in much more useful ways, like buying this:

These kids are going to be unhappy to find out that not only did they miss out on this awesome cotton candy machine but that their Easter present is an audit from the FEC.

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My continuing joke about Ron Paul around the Sunlight office is that he would win in a landslide if all of his supporter’s MMORPG characters were allowed to vote. (That’s massively multiplayer online role playing game for those not hip to the slang.) All jokes aside, it appears that Paul’s supporters can sure raise a lot of money. In the 3^rd Quarter of this year Ron Paul raised just over $5 million putting him slightly behind a former frontrunner John McCain, who raised $6 million. Paul has now set a goal of raising $12 million in the 4^th Quarter and is using his Web site to show progress in achieving that goal.

Where Howard Dean had his bat Ron Paul has his Statue of Liberty. The Statue measures the amount raised so far, updating in real time, as Paul reaches his goal of $4 million in October. While Dean and others used these kinds of visuals tools to highlight fundraising during a key period this kind of fundraising transparency has never been done in real time over an entire quarter. Paul’s Web site also shows the names and hometowns of the donors. All of this data cries for one thing and one thing only: user generated content!

Paul’s Internet supporters instantly took all of this information and created their own site, RonPaulGraphs.com, which breaks down the fundraising into tons and tons of graphs. Here’s a couple of my favorites:

Patrick Ruffini went a step further and pulled all of the names and hometowns of donors into an Excel spreadsheet and proceeded to map the data. It looks like this:

This is all really interesting stuff and it really shows how much of the Ron Paul campaign is being fueled through online innovation by citizens and not campaign staff. Paul’s fundraising transparency allows citizens, supporters and non-supporters alike, to engage in his campaign in new ways, see the real time graphs above, that more traditional campaigns do not.

Now imagine this kind of real time transparency for members of Congress and their fundraising. We could have MAPLight in real time. Or if lobbyists had to disclose their meetings in real time we could really map influence in Washington. Ah, the benefits of real transparency.

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The Reason Foundation has been getting the presidential candidates to talk more about transparency on the campaign trail by asking them to sign a pledge to run a transparent administration and fully enforce the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, also known as Coburn-Obama. The FFATA requires the Office of Management and Budget to disclose all federal funding contracts, grants, and earmarks in a searchable database. The Sunlight Foundation was a part of a coalition of groups that worked to pass the bill, in particular working to out the Senator with a secret hold on the bill. So far, three candidates - Barack Obama, Ron Paul, and Sam Brownback - have signed the pledge. It’s great to see transparency taking a hold as an issue in the 2008 presidential election. Hopefully, we’ll hear from more candidates on the issue soon. For now, check out below for the statements made by the three pledge signees.

Sen. Barack Obama: "Every American has the right to know how the government spends their tax dollars, but for too long that information has been largely hidden from public view. This historic law will lift the veil of secrecy in Washington and ensure that our government is transparent and accountable to the American people. And I will be proud to fully implement and enforce this law as president."

Rep. Ron Paul: "Signing the Oath of Presidential Transparency was a no brainer for me. I will aggressively pursue full openness and accountability within my administration if elected president."

Sen. Sam Brownback: "Americans need to feel they can trust their government. As president I will continue my record of supporting policies that increase government transparency and boost confidence in our democratic system."

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