Searchable Database (Subscription Only) • Higher And Higher • CEO Responses To The Story • CEO Pay: Behind The Numbers • Related Stories: CEO Roots, Financial Industry • Graphics: Growing Survey, Growing Take, Women At The Top, Who Spent The Most Lobbying? • Top 50: By Compensation Only (Subscription Only) • Top 50: By Total Package (Subscription Only)

In the run-up to Florida's presidential primary on January 29, a few Washington trade association leaders went missing from their headquarters.

One was Dirk Van Dongen, the president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. Last year, as the leader of Rudy Giuliani's Washington fundraising team, he helped corral more than $1 million in campaign contributions for the former New York City mayor's presidential bid. Before the Florida primary, Van Dongen spent three days in the state lending a hand with a fundraiser in Sarasota and at other events for Giuliani, who has since bowed out of the race.

Similarly, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, the president of the American Council of Life Insurers and a staunch Republican, spent a few days in the Sunshine State making television appearances and speeches on behalf of his favored candidate -- and the front-runner for the GOP nomination -- Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Meanwhile, the night before the primary, a McCain fundraising bash held in the Washington area pulled in about $150,000 with help from such prominent trade group executives as former Rep. Steve Bartlett, R-Texas, who heads the Financial Services Roundtable; Charles (Chip) Kahn III, the president of the Federation of American Hospitals; and Kyle McSlarrow, who runs the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.

"I've reached out to friends here in D.C. and in the industry," says McSlarrow, who has known McCain for many years and estimates that he has raised a little more than $100,000 for the senator's presidential bid. McSlarrow, like several other trade group leaders, stresses that he has done the fundraising on his own, not on behalf of his industry.

These money-harvesting efforts highlight an increasingly commonplace activity among trade group leaders during the presidential election season -- early fundraising and political work for aspiring candidates to help them grab their party's nomination.

Candidates benefit considerably when trade group leaders bundle large sums for their campaigns. "Association executives tend to have a wide network of people at a certain income level who can give the maximum contributions," says Larry Noble, a campaign finance lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Although GOP candidates tend to get a lot of backing from Republican trade group heavyweights, the trend isn't limited to their party. Some association leaders, as well as several union leaders, have worked on behalf of Democratic candidates.

Gerald McEntee, head of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and Ed McElroy, who runs the American Federation of Teachers, have worked aggressively during the primaries to mobilize their members for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. McElroy estimates that before Super Tuesday on February 5, his union spent close to $3 million on internal member communications, including phone banks and letters, to boost Clinton.

Likewise in the early primaries, two insurance trade group leaders helped raise big bucks for Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who has been a strong industry ally. "We felt [that Dodd] was a person who understood our issues and has been fair," says Frank Nutter, the president of the Reinsurance Association of America. "Our community," Nutter says, raised about $190,000 for Dodd, who also has dropped out of the race.

Washington trade group executives began to emerge as fundraising leaders in 2000, when George W. Bush's campaign assembled a national network of major bundlers, known as "Pioneers," each of whom raised at least $100,000 for Bush's successful White House bid. "Bush went out real early and was clearly the anointed one," says Frank Fahrenkopf, the head of the American Gaming Association, who has remained neutral in 2008 because he co-chairs the Commission on Presidential Debates.

GOP consultant Scott Reed agrees that Bush's fundraising goal was to "blow the competition away," adding, "There hasn't been the same organizational effort to corral the trade association community" in 2008, partly because of the anti-Washington themes in the race.

Before McCain emerged as the front-runner, many K Street leaders refrained from backing a candidate. Lobbyist Kirk Blalock, a McCain supporter, says, "A lot of people in Washington are afraid to put their credibility on the line in a primary election, because if their candidate loses they may have to eat crow."

Still, for a variety of personal and ideological reasons, some trade group and union leaders did back a candidate early. Jack Gerard, the president of the American Chemistry Council and a longtime GOP fundraiser, explains that he opted for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney partly to play an advocacy role in shaping public policy. "It's critically important to engage in the process from the very beginning," he says. Romney dropped out of the race on February 7.

Van Dongen has already switched to McCain, and he expects others to do the same. "The smoke has cleared and there's now a presumptive nominee," he says, "You will find that virtually all the fundraisers, advisers, and activists for candidates who didn't make it will fall in behind the guy who did and be welcomed."

Early on, McCain, despite his record as a strong advocate of lobbying and campaign finance reform, banked on a cadre of devoted friends in the trade group community who have known him for years, such as Walter McCormick Jr., the president of the United States Telecom Association, and Bartlett of the Financial Services Roundtable.

Bartlett, recalling that he first met McCain when they were both elected to Congress in 1982, says he has helped raise money by letting company executives know when the senator is going to visit their states. Similarly, McCormick, who was chief GOP counsel at the Senate Commerce Committee when McCain first served on that panel, says he's "reached out aggressively" to get campaign contributions from friends and industry executives nationwide in such states as Kansas, Texas, and Washington. McCormick, who, sources say, has raised upwards of $100,000, also serves on McCain's Washington finance steering committee.

Others, including Kahn of the hospital federation, joined McCain's fundraising team more recently. After having stayed on the sidelines last year because of his involvement with a series of presidential candidate health forums, Kahn began raising money for McCain "by turning to people in my industry."

On the Democratic side, a few union leaders, such as McEntee of AFSCME, were especially valuable to Clinton in several states that held early primaries and caucuses. The Democrats had a "very strong bench this year," McEntee says. But after Clinton emerged as the union's favorite in internal polls, he explains, "we decided to play right away."

McEntee spent almost two weeks making campaign visits to all of the early primary and caucus states, including Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, where, he says, he personally worked the Paris casino in Las Vegas on the day of the voting. And before Super Tuesday, McEntee traveled to Massachusetts and New York to help spearhead union efforts to get out the vote for Clinton.

McElroy along with the 1.4 million-member AFT has been another huge labor backer of Clinton. McElroy stopped in New Hampshire and Nevada before the voting in both states and visited Connecticut and New Mexico in the run-up to Super Tuesday. "I talked to cocktail waitresses, cooks, and janitors," McEntee says, noting that Clinton won the state's Democratic caucus despite the fact that Nevada's culinary workers union backed Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

Although Democratic trade group leaders have been more cautious than their GOP counterparts about getting involved early as bundlers, some have maxed out in personal contributions to their favorite candidate. For instance, former Clinton administration Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, who runs the Motion Picture Association of America, has donated $4,600 to the Clinton campaign, as has his wife, Rhoda.

But one Democrat who runs an insurance trade group did jump in early to boost Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over insurance matters. "He's been a great friend to the insurance industry," says Ken Crerar, the president of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers and a former Dodd staffer. Crerar raised about $100,000 for the senator.

Similarly, Nutter of the reinsurance group doesn't voice any regret about supporting Dodd, who never was a serious contender for his party's presidential nomination. Once it is clear who the two party nominees will be, Nutter says, his group will decide which candidate is "best for the industry and its policyholders."