I've been sitting on this story for a few weeks now hoping that our "paper of record", the Seattle Times, might investigate it on their own but, as of yet, they've given it only cursory mention and it remains uncovered by all but a handful of blogs and one newspaper, the Federal Way Mirror.

So what's the story? Well, it may not seem like much to most people but it sure seemed important to Senators John McCain and Russ Feingold a few years ago and it has to do with "hard" and "soft" money and how both can be spent and by what entity.

In short, soft money comes from groups with benevolent sounding names like "Citizens for A Better Tomorrow" or "Citizens Against Violence" and are often connected to "hard" money campaigns with names like "Charles Kane for Governor" or "Committee to Re-Elect Mayor Goldie Wilson." The key to navigating the campaign finance laws is to make sure that connection isn't too close.

We all know that groups like the WEA went around singing the praises of Gregoire last year but the reason they could do it and not be in violation of campaign finance laws is that there was no coordination between Gregoire's re-election campaign and the WEA PAC.

So what's the deal with Dow Constantine's campaign?

To borrow a term from investment banking, he's "trading on both sides of the Chinese Wall." His treasurer is also the treasurer for one of those benevolent sounding soft money groups called "Citizens to Uphold the Constitution" which has paid at least $11,300 toward trying to defeat Constantine opponent Susan Hutchison.

Now Bennett might claim that all he does is enter numbers into a spreadsheet but let's get real. Even if that were the case it shows extremely poor judgment to be sharing treasurers with a campaign that Constantine isn't suppose to be connected to at all. I seem to recall a little auditing firm called Arthur Anderson claiming something similar once upon a time.

And speaking of sharing, Bennett is not the only one being shared. Constantine's campaign consultant, Northwest Passage, shares offices with Moxie Media, another campaign consultant that ran a $14,565 attack against erstwhile Constantine opponent Ross Hunter. One of Constantine's staffers also appears to be doing some work with Moxie. The Stranger contributor Josh Feit seems to have prophesied something like this might occur way back in August '07.

The PDC is still reviewing the two complaints they've thus far received and will likely launch a formal investigation next week.

So maybe this is all completely innocuous. And then again, maybe my birth certificate reads October 4, 2009.

For anyone who'd like to encourage the Seattle Times to let a more widespread audience know about what's going on, a group will be in front of their office tomorrow afternoon at 2pm.