The Democratic National Committee, now operating under Barack Obama (web|news|bio) 's fundraising rules, on Friday returned about $100,000 in money from lobbyists and political action committees. The donations were already "in the pipeline" when Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, instituted the standards for the committee, a party official said. Obama imposed the rules to avoid a conflict with his own ban on money from federal lobbyists and PACs. On Thursday he sent one of his top strategists to the DNC to help with its general election operation.

Republican John McCain (web|news|bio) does accept money from lobbyists and PACs as does the Republican National Committee and other party committees. Obama's ban does not apply to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee nor to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Obama does accept money from lobbyists who do not do business with the federal government and he also accepts money from spouses and family members of lobbyists. And the DNC ban is also not retroactive, which means the DNC will keep lobbyist and PAC contributions it received earlier in the election cycle.

According to its latest report with the Federal Election Commission, the DNC had raised $2 million from PACs in the past 16 months. And according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, the DNC raised a mere $53,360 from executives or associates in lobbying firms so far this election cycle. That total, however, includes employees of lobbying firms who are not registered lobbyists.

The DNC has lagged behind the RNC in fundraising. On Thursday, the McCain campaign announced it had raised $21.5 million in May and the RNC said it had collected nearly $24 million. The DNC raised almost $5 million during the month. The Obama camp, which has been raising at a clip of $1 million a day or better, has not announced its May totals.

But the Republican money advantage was the subject of a fundraising e-mail from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to its donors.

"We need to respond quickly and show that we are ready to take on Senator McCain in the general election," Plouffe wrote. "We are going to compete in the general election the same way we have all along_by depending on a movement of more than 1.5 million people giving only what they can afford."