UPDATE:The WaPo is running the following correction to this story: "An earlier version of this story about campaign donations that Florida businessman Harry Sargeant III raised for Sen. John McCain, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton incorrectly identified three individuals as being among the donors Sargeant solicited on behalf of McCain. Those donors -- Rite Aid manager Ibrahim Marabeh, and lounge owners Nadia and Shawn Abdalla -- wrote checks to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain. Also, the first name of Faisal Abdullah, a McCain donor, was misspelled in some versions of the story."

The Washington Post today has a revealing piece on Harry Sargeant III, the Florida-based defense contractor and a leading fundraiser for Sen. John McCain. Sargeant is a king in the world of political money bundling, where fixers like himself "coordinate" large numbers of small donations.

The Post looked into the donors Sargeant has recruited from southern California, and finds an interesting crew with very little interest in politics:

Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.

Sargeant's firm, International Oil Trading Co., drew headlines in May when it was revealed that IOTC was likely gouging the Pentagon in a contract worth up to $1 billion to ship aviation fuel to U.S. based in Iraq, the company's third Iraq contract. As Rep. Henry Waxman noted in a letter to IOTC:

According to a recent press account regarding International Oil Trading Company (IOTC), "For each gallon of jet fuel that is delivered to the U.S. military in Iraq, IOTC charges the Pentagon $1.08 over the market price." According to this account, the Pentagon confirmed that "IOTC was not the lowest bidder" for this contract.

Sargeant replied that "Everything we have done on this contract has been in the best interest of the military and the U.S. taxpayers."

Perhaps most illuminating is Sargeant's non-ideological approach to fundraising. Before he emerged as McCain's top money-man in Florida, Sargeant had also raised over $100,000 for competing GOP contender Rudy Giuliani -- and Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton. In many cases, the donors -- either because they were unaware of where the checks would end up, or because they were equally noncommittal in their political loyalties -- were the same for all candidates.

Thirteen of the donors [to Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist] resurfaced on Dec. 13, 2007, sending a combined $29,200 to Giuliani's campaign at a time when Sargeant was heading up fundraising efforts in Florida for the former mayor. Seventeen of them sent the maximum allowed, $2,300, to Clinton's presidential campaign on Dec. 24. And a dozen of them returned in March to write checks to McCain totaling $50,600.