Usually, when journalists look at campaign financing, we look at who gave the candidates money. But here is a twist. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have Political Action Committees that have doled out thousands of dollars to the very people who will be voting to nominate them.

These recipients are so called "superdelegates," mostly party insiders who may back whomever they wish. Many are elected officials, such as congressmen, governors and the like. If you look at how candidates spend their campaign funds, you will often see that they help finance their political pals. Just go here and type in a congressperson, then click "expenditures" on the left side of the page. You can see how the elected official spends every dime of his or her campaign contributions.

The Center for Responsive Politics finds:

While it would be unseemly for the candidates to hand out thousands of dollars to primary voters, or to the delegates pledged to represent the will of those voters, elected officials who are superdelegates have received at least $890,000 from Obama and Clinton in the form of campaign contributions over the last three years, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Obama, who narrowly leads in the count of pledged, "non-super" delegates, has doled out more than $694,000 to superdelegates from his political action committee, Hope Fund, or campaign committee since 2005. Of the 81 elected officials who had announced as of Feb. 12 that their superdelegate votes would go to the Illinois senator, 34, or 40 percent of this group, have received campaign contributions from him in the 2006 or 2008 election cycles, totaling $228,000. In addition, Obama has been endorsed by 52 superdelegates who haven't held elected office recently and, therefore, didn't receive campaign contributions from him.

Clinton does not appear to have been as openhanded. Her PAC, HILLPAC, and campaign committee appear to have distributed $195,500 to superdelegates. Only 12 percent of her elected superdelegates, or 13 of 109 who have said they will back her, have received campaign contributions, totaling about $95,000 since 2005. An additional 128 unelected superdelegates support Clinton, according to a blog tracking superdelegates and their endorsements, 2008 Democratic Convention Watch.