2 sets of campaign books

The New York Observer finds a pattern to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's secret campaign payments.

The journalist Aram Roston has reported that in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's campaigns in each of 2005 and 2009, the mayor paid money out of his private accounts that were ultimately funneled to the political operative John Haggerty.

If we are to accept that the mayor has a track record of spending money for his political campaigns out of his private accounts, in addition to his official campaign committee accounts, then the amounts that the mayor has reported and certified as being his campaign finances cannot be either true, accurate, or complete.

Add to that the fact that it has been alleged that Mayor Bloomberg has paid millions to charitable organisations in exchange for their political support, and you begin to realise that we really don't know how much money he has spent on campaigning or electioneering to be mayor.

We can only guess that the reason the mayor has used his private accounts to pay intermediaries for campaign-related services like ''ballot security'' was to evade the reporting and disclosure requirements of the campaign accounts. Meanwhile, for his part in the money funneling operation, Mr. Haggerty is facing criminal charges for how he spent the campaign payments.