Over at Rochesterturning, poster Exile asks whether the recent McClatchy investigation into the politicization of the grant-making process has any relevance to the 29th. The McClatchy reporters showed that grant announcements from agencies, and public appearances with cabinet secretaries, were correlated with "GOP Interests". The report concentrates on the Commerce and Treasury departments.
Under the Hatch Act, agencies aren't allowed to provide grants in order to help candidates. But meeting with Members of Congress, and attending political briefings, are allowed. It's going to be hard to prove causation, but there's definitely some correlation between grant announcements and GOP political needs in the 29th. Exile points to this Kuhl press release, where a $2.6 Energy Department grant was announced two weeks before the election, accompanied by fulsome praise of Kuhl from the Energy Secretary. Earlier in 2006, Kuhl also received great credit from the Commerce Secretary for an Infotonics grant.
Since these grants were vetted by career civil servants who are protected by whistleblower legislation, I doubt that any of them were purely politically motivated. But there is persuasive evidence that the current White House went far beyond previous administrations in raising political awareness of cabinet agencies, and Randy Kuhl sure got a lot of attaboys from cabinet secretaries in 2006.
Update: Today's Washington Post has a front-page story on the same topic.