The reformy-minded campaign finance machine is becoming a fact of American political life. Michelle Rhee's political giving around the country has been well-documented, as have the lobbying efforts of members of the educational-industrial complex such as K12, Inc and Jeb's Bush's FEE.

What I don't think we've really determined, as of yet, is just how well-coordinated and far-reaching this reformy intrusion into politics is. Case in point: through sheer coincidence, a reader set me on a trail of a series of coordinated campaign donations that is simply astonishing in its breadth and depth.

Let's start with a post of mine from this past November, when I reported about the absurd amount of money coming into the Perth Amboy school board race. This small city in New Jersey has a history of political corruption, but school board races had never attracted much attention from outside the state until this past year:

One slate of Perth Amboy school board candidates has raised more than $44,500, much of it from founders and supporters of charter schools, some from out-of-state ....