[Threadjack and spam redacted – Neil Stevens]

Who is going to ask? The McCain campaign would have to bring it up in an ad, and the response from the media would be “McCain is showing how desperate he is”.

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Because if the donations were as legitimate as Barry would have you believe, there is no reason he would not disclose them.

This is the same person, remember, who went to Europe and the Middle East to campaign. In fact, he was reprimanded by the German Chancellor for same.

All he needs to do is disclose his donations in full, as Senator McCain has. Unfortunately, he will not, because if he did his campaign would be over.

It’s a simple Occam’s Razor. He raised more money than anyone in history for a presidential campaign, and will not disclose his donors in full. Being that the simplest explanation is most likely true, then he more than likely has something to hide about his donations.

That “matching program” that the author discribes at the end is nothing more than the introduction of rich supporters to poor supporters through whom they can launder illegal contributions.

Wow.

Yes, I’m sober. Yes, I know what I’m saying. No, I don’t think this is reckless hyperbole and demagoguery.

I believe Obama loves “this country” … enough to change it in his image and likeness… one singing child at a time.

Hillary would have been bad for policy reasons. Obama is downright dangerous because of what we simply do not know about him and he refuses to come public with. I mean every word of this.

And where can I contribute??? If there was ever a great topic for a 527 campaign, this is it.

Anything to further a goal is justified; legal, moral, ethical or no.

Right out of the progressive/liberal play-book.

Smells like George Soros tactics to me.

From the article:
“It is the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever flooded into the U.S. election system, before or after the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms of 2002.”

Crowe–I agree! It’s not hyperbole.

but cannot someone bring this to the Federal Elections Commission….obviously he is doing things illegally and is not that their juristiction.

Obama is the perfect 527 attack candidate.

I have never in my life seen someone who has so many vulnerabilities, and so much potential ammunition to use against them.

Despite all that, there seems to be very little independent conservative political groups taking their message to the airwaves. There’s only so much attacking the McCain campaign can do, he needs backup. I’m hoping October will have some surprises for Obama.

The media is so ridiculously in the tank for Obama that every one of these stories is going to be quickly buried, and some ridiculous Palin “scandal” will have an entire news team devoted to it. The only way we’re going to get a fair shake is if we buy our own airtime.

I am honestly worried that despite the MSM’s growing irrelevance, they might just be able to pull Obama over the finish line.

Conservatives need to figure out how to defeat the MSM, that truly is the only thing propping up the Democrat Party.

As silly as this sounds, I think wealthy individual conservatives and groups should pool their money together and look at purchasing various media outlets around the country.

He’s a citizen of the world!

Another good post, Erick. This one merits more scrutiny of Obama campaign finances.

If he is elected, and then this is investigated (if that is even possible), and it is found that he took illegal contributions, doesn’t that qualify for impeachment? (But that would leave us with Biden…. never mind….)

Seriously!! “Good Will” donated several times with a job and profession of “Loving you?” Not to mention the foreign contributions. Why isn’t this out on FOX News or other outlets to the point where the Obama campaign and CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN have to defend him?

McCain is an absolute idiot or he hates the GOP so much for 2000 that he is bringing down in flames. He won ‘t respond to anything. Maybe he thinks people people will think he is so honorable. As we stand to day, unless he has something big on Obama he will loose by 10 to 15 points.

I will stop contributing to his campaign and concentrate at the local level.

Don’t we have campaign finance laws? Are they being violated?

Sounds like. So why aren’t lawyers parachuting into D.C. to get a handle on this thing?

If the Republican party lays down and plays dead, we deserve to lose.

The amounts from overseas may be small now but if and when the Obama/Ayers ticket gets elected we may see fire sales on things American. At least we can expect a reduction on our balance of payments deficit.
It didn’t bother liberals before when Bill put America on the international meat counter, don’t expect so much as a raised eyebrow this time around. It comes with being “progressive”.

A few points:

• Current law doesn’t require disclosure of sub-$200 donations (though the campaign is almost certainly keeping track because if aggregate contributions exceed that, they do have to disclose the donor). Despite the article mentioning McCain’s ostensible “full disclosure”, I couldn’t find it easily by poking around or by googling (“site:” search). Putting that kind of disclosure isn’t trivial to do in a good way (technically speaking), so Obama’s campaign may not have put money into it deciding they could spend money better elsewhere. And the campaign isn’t going to knowingly accept (or keep) non-legal contributions even below the legal reporting limit: the FEC can always ask to look. It would be a stupid mistake and one that clearly isn’t needed given how many Americans (whether anyone here likes it or not) like Obama.
• Crap will happen. The campaign finance system puts the burden on the donor (mostly) to assert their legal ability to donate. The Obama campaign appears to be reasonably trying to fix problems despite the inflammatory tone of this article (there is a big delay between actions and reporting which may explain why it seems “slow” that the invalid contributions are returned). It’s not like Obama’s campaign needs to keep the sub-$100k invalid donations — they’re rolling in contributions. The sluggishness is easily explained by the usual problems bureaucracies have: if they are busy, they are slow(er). And it may not be well-liked, but the Obama campaign is busy.
• The accidental donations via buying campaign gear is somewhat understandable: if you’re a foreigner who wants campaign gear (and yes, some obviously do!) you might not notice the text that says this form is for legal donors only.

I specifically think the tone in this article is a bit unfair with the “no doubt the campaign noticed” lines — in reality this stuff is probably handled semi-automatically especially for online and credit card donations. The campaign wouldn’t notice unless they put in computer programs to scan for seemingly fraudulent donations — which they aren’t obligated to do — and which wouldn’t really catch the examples they gave. How does a computer “know” a name isn’t real? What happens if it rejects contributions from people who just have “strange” names? Then the story would be “Obama discriminates against …”

I hope this isn’t taken wrong, but I think it a good idea to not always put the worst spin on things: if you give others the benefit of the doubt about their intentions and actions, they are more inclined to give you the same courtesy. The minor amount of money that really is invalid just isn’t a big issue and likely will be seen by voters as mistakes (which I think they mostly are) — it’s far more important where candidates stand and what they would do.

(Also, I’m obviously new here.

it still bears repeating to the general public. The person named “Good Will” with occupation of “Loving you” giving over the limited amount should be interesting enough for even CBS to air.

And I lament as so many on this post have done: what is McCain doing here? Stand up, scream, do something!