The whole things got started when the Ron Paul campaign staff made the candidate's fundraising transparent and live on its website -- even including a nifty thermometer that flashed up the totals and the name of the latest donor. This widget inspired the music producer and political entrepreneur Trevor Lyman to come up with the idea of getting everyone to donate all at once and watch the thermometer go wild. The Nov. 5 "bomb" raised 4.3 million, another on Dec. 16 landed 6.1 million--both records for fundraising in a single day.

The Paul campaign is over (though the Texas congressman remains a thorn in McCain's side), and Lyman has moved on, first to social networking and now to a little more money bombing, this time with some unlikely comrades.

As I mentioned in my last post constitutional lawyer and progressive blogger Glen Greenwald is fed up with the so-called "Blue Dog Democrats"--moderate liberals who go along with Bush on the war and have supported things like the recent FISA amendment Act of 2008. Greenwald wants to kick these guys out of Congress--at whatever the cost--and has teamed up Lyman to get the job done. The pair organized a money bomb on behalf of Accountability Now PAC, which is developing a "strange bed fellows" project bringing together libertarians and progressives. In launching the bomb, Greenwald and Lyman's target was Maryland's Steny Hoyer--very "Blue Doggy" and apparently ripe to get knocked off in November.

It all seems like one of those "enemy of my enemy," improbably alliances that makes politics interesting again... Well, the Money Bomb had a pretty respectable explosion at around $150,000. But it's still important to ask, Who in the "strange bedfellows" coalition is really on top?

As The Politicker points out, there is a full-fledged Ron Paul Republican named Collins Bailey set to run against Hoyer in the fall, and he's strapped for cash. And yet, all of the money raised went to Accountability Now PAC, not Bailey. The PAC will probably end up supporting some causes and candidates that won't much please the former Paul supporters who took part in the effort--after all, beyond FISA, progressives and constitutional-libertarians don't agree on much. For Lyman, the "strange bed fellows" thing might start to feel like a bad one-night stand.

[Image Source: "Money Bomb"]