Who’s bundling whom?

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have released updated lists of their so-called bundlers, fat cats who hit up their friends for the maximum amount of campaign contributions allowed by law. That can be as much as $4600 directly to the presidential campaigns, as well as $28,500 to national party organizations and another $10,000 to various state groups.

On the McCain side, Qualcomm executive vice president Len J. Lauer; Fredric J. Maas, CEO of Black Mountain Ranch; Joel L. Reed of R.A.A. Capital; and Poway contractor Doug Barnhart are down for between $50,000 and $100,000 each. Among the $100,000 to $250,000 bundlers are San Diego hotel magnate and GOP stalwart Sam Hardage and Brahma Holdings COO John Heubusch. Chargers president Dean Spanos brought in between $250,000 and $500,000.

Obama hasn’t broken down his contributors by city as McCain has, making it harder to determine who is who on the Obama list, but his local chairwoman, La Jollan Christine Forester, is listed as raising over $200,000. … Despite the state’s budget crisis, another round of big salaries was handed out by University of California regents last week at their meeting in Santa Barbara. Jeffrey Elman, who was named UCSD’s dean of social sciences effective September 1, will make $277,400, plus life and travel insurance. Elman, a cognitive science expert, has been serving as interim dean. In addition, Mark Thiemens, UCSD’s dean of physical sciences, was given a special “summer salary” increase of $22,117, bringing his total annual pay up to $287,517, according to a university document. The extra pay, covered by NASA grant funds, was part of a program to reward faculty for their “summer research activities.” In exchange, they agree to forfeit “an equivalent amount of accrued vacation.”