[Rhodes22-list] Politics - How Much for the White House?

[petelargo]

newsmax? really? you can't find a more reputable source like maybe the KKK
gazette. I guess we can put this in the obama is a secret muslim-obama is a
secret communist-obama is a secret terrorist-obama eats the white filling
out of oreos nonsense. more yawn.


Brad Haslett-2 wrote:
> 
> Isn't this special?  All this time some of us were focusing on the
> Rezko type big donors (and their ties to the Middle East) but it turns
> out it is the "little guys" we should be concentrating on.  No wonder
> he turned down public financing. Brad
> 
> -------------------------
> 
> Secret, Foreign Money Floods Into Obama Campaign
> 
> Monday, September 29, 2008 9:23 PM
> 
> By: Kenneth R. Timmerman 	Article Font Size
> 
> 
> More than half of the whopping $426.9 million Barack Obama has raised
> has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won't
> disclose.
> 
> And questions have arisen about millions more in foreign donations the
> Obama campaign has received that apparently have not been vetted as
> legitimate.
> 
> Obama has raised nearly twice that of John McCain's campaign,
> according to new campaign finance report.
> 
> But because of Obama's high expenses during the hotly contested
> Democratic primary season and an early decision to forgo public
> campaign money and the spending limits it imposes, all that cash has
> not translated into a financial advantage — at least, not yet.
> 
> The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee began
> September with $95 million in cash, according to reports filed with
> the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
> 
> The McCain camp and the Republican National Committee had $94 million,
> because of an influx of $84 million in public money.
> 
> But Obama easily could outpace McCain by $50 million to $100 million
> or more in new donations before Election Day, thanks to a legion of
> small contributors whose names and addresses have been kept secret.
> 
> Unlike the McCain campaign, which has made its complete donor database
> available online, the Obama campaign has not identified donors for
> nearly half the amount he has raised, according to the Center for
> Responsive Politics (CRP).
> 
> Federal law does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give
> less than $200 during the election cycle. However, it does require
> that campaigns calculate running totals for each donor and report them
> once they go beyond the $200 mark.
> 
> Surprisingly, the great majority of Obama donors never break the $200
> threshold.
> 
> "Contributions that come under $200 aggregated per person are not
> listed," said Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the FEC. "They don't
> appear anywhere, so there's no way of knowing who they are."
> 
> The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a staggering
> $222.7 million as coming from contributions of $200 or less. Only
> $39.6 million of that amount comes from donors the Obama campaign has
> identified.
> 
> 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.
> 
> Biersack would not comment on whether the FEC was investigating the
> huge amount of cash that has come into Obama's coffers with no public
> reporting.
> 
> But Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for CRP, a campaign-finance watchdog
> group, dismissed the scale of the unreported money.
> 
> "We feel comfortable that it isn't the $20 donations that are
> corrupting a campaign," he told Newsmax.
> 
> But those small donations have added up to more than $200 million, all
> of it from unknown and unreported donors.
> 
> Ritsch acknowledges that there is skepticism about all the unreported
> money, especially in the Obama campaign coffers.
> 
> "We and seven other watchdog groups asked both campaigns for more
> information on small donors," he said. "The Obama campaign never
> responded," whereas the McCain campaign "makes all its donor
> information, including the small donors, available online."
> 
> The rise of the Internet as a campaign funding tool raises new
> questions about the adequacy of FEC requirements on disclosure. In
> pre-Internet fundraising, almost all political donations, even small
> ones, were made by bank check, leaving a paper trail and limiting the
> amount of fraud.
> 
> But credit cards used to make donations on the Internet have allowed
> for far more abuse.
> 
> "While FEC practice is to do a post-election review of all
> presidential campaigns, given their sluggish metabolism, results can
> take three or four years," said Ken Boehm, the chairman of the
> conservative National Legal and Policy Center.
> 
> Already, the FEC has noted unusual patterns in Obama campaign
> donations among donors who have been disclosed because they have gone
> beyond the $200 minimum.
> 
> FEC and Mr. Doodad Pro
> 
> When FEC auditors have questions about contributions, they send
> letters to the campaign's finance committee requesting additional
> information, such as the complete address or employment status of the
> donor.
> 
> Many of the FEC letters that Newsmax reviewed instructed the Obama
> campaign to "redesignate" contributions in excess of the finance
> limits.
> 
> Under campaign finance laws, an individual can donate $2,300 to a
> candidate for federal office in both the primary and general election,
> for a total of $4,600. If a donor has topped the limit in the primary,
> the campaign can "redesignate" the contribution to the general
> election on its books.
> 
> In a letter dated June 25, 2008, the FEC asked the Obama campaign to
> verify a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as
> "Will, Good" from Austin, Texas.
> 
> Mr. Good Will listed his employer as "Loving" and his profession as "You."
> 
> A Newsmax analysis of the 1.4 million individual contributions in the
> latest master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate
> entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25.
> 
> In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375.
> 
> Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that
> 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit
> card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net
> cumulative balance of $8,950 — still well over the $4,600 limit.
> 
> There can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed these
> contributions, since Obama's Sept. 20 report specified that Good
> Will's cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign
> were $9,375.
> 
> In an e-mailed response to a query from Newsmax, Obama campaign
> spokesman Ben LaBolt pledged that the campaign would return the
> donations. But given the slowness with which the campaign has
> responded to earlier FEC queries, there's no guarantee that the money
> will be returned before the Nov. 4 election.
> 
> Similarly, a donor identified as "Pro, Doodad," from "Nando, NY," gave
> $19,500 in 786 separate donations, most of them for $25. For most of
> these donations, Mr. Doodad Pro listed his employer as "Loving" and
> his profession as "You," just as Good Will had done.
> 
> But in some of them, he didn't even go this far, apparently picking
> letters at random to fill in the blanks on the credit card donation
> form. In these cases, he said he was employed by "VCX" and that his
> profession was "VCVC."
> 
> Following FEC requests, the Obama campaign began refunding money to
> Doodad Pro in February 2008. In all, about $8,425 was charged back to
> a credit card. But that still left a net total of $11,165 as of Sept.
> 20, way over the individual limit of $4,600.
> 
> Here again, LaBolt pledged that the contributions would be returned
> but gave no date.
> 
> In February, after just 93 donations, Doodad Pro had already gone over
> the $2,300 limit for the primary. He was over the $4,600 limit for the
> general election one month later.
> 
> In response to FEC complaints, the Obama campaign began refunding
> money to Doodad Pro even before he reached these limits. But his
> credit card was the gift that kept on giving. His most recent
> un-refunded contributions were on July 7, when he made 14 separate
> donations, apparently by credit card, of $25 each.
> 
> Just as with Mr. Good Will, there can be no doubt that the Obama
> campaign noticed the contributions, since its Sept. 20 report
> specified that Doodad's cumulative contributions since the beginning
> of the campaign were $10,965.
> 
> Foreign Donations
> 
> And then there are the overseas donations — at least, the ones that we
> know about.
> 
> The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable
> overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions
> totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their "state" as "IR,"
> often an abbreviation for Iran. Another 63 listed it as "UK," the
> United Kingdom.
> 
> More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or
> military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total
> contributions came to just $201,680.
> 
> But others came from places as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa,
> Beijing, Fallujah, Florence, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and
> cities in France.
> 
> Until recently, the Obama Web site allowed a contributor to select the
> country where he resided from the entire membership of the United
> Nations, including such friendly places as North Korea and the Islamic
> Republic of Iran.
> 
> Unlike McCain's or Sen. Hillary Clinton's online donation pages, the
> Obama site did not ask for proof of citizenship until just recently.
> Clinton's presidential campaign required U.S. citizens living abroad
> to actually fax a copy of their passport before a donation would be
> accepted.
> 
> With such lax vetting of foreign contributions, the Obama campaign may
> have indirectly contributed to questionable fundraising by foreigners.
> 
> In July and August, the head of the Nigeria's stock market held a
> series of pro-Obama fundraisers in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city. The
> events attracted local Nigerian business owners.
> 
> At one event, a table for eight at one fundraising dinner went for
> $16,800. Nigerian press reports claimed sponsors raked in an estimated
> $900,000.
> 
> The sponsors said the fundraisers were held to help Nigerians attend
> the Democratic convention in Denver. But the Nigerian press expressed
> skepticism of that claim, and the Nigerian public anti-fraud
> commission is now investigating the matter.
> 
> Concerns about foreign fundraising have been raised by other anecdotal
> accounts of illegal activities.
> 
> In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a public speech praising
> Obama, claiming foreign nationals were donating to his campaign.
> 
> "All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded
> this man," the Libyan leader said. "They welcomed him and prayed for
> him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in
> legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American
> presidency..."
> 
> Though Gadhafi asserted that fundraising from Arab and African nations
> were "legitimate," the fact is that U.S. federal law bans any
> foreigner from donating to a U.S. election campaign.
> 
> The rise of the Internet and use of credit cards have made it easier
> for foreign nationals to donate to American campaigns, especially if
> they claim their donation is less than $200.
> 
> Campaign spokesman LaBolt cited several measures that the campaign has
> adopted to "root out fraud," including a requirement that anyone
> attending an Obama fundraising event overseas present a valid U.S.
> passport, and a new requirement that overseas contributors must
> provide a passport number when donating online.
> 
> One new measure that might not appear obvious at first could be
> frustrating to foreigners wanting to buy campaign paraphernalia such
> as T-shirts or bumper stickers through the online store.
> 
> In response to an investigation conducted by blogger Pamela Geller,
> who runs the blog Atlas Shrugs, the Obama campaign has locked down the
> store.
> 
> Geller first revealed on July 31 that donors from the Gaza strip had
> contributed $33,000 to the Obama campaign through bulk purchases of
> T-shirts they had shipped to Gaza.
> 
> The online campaign store allows buyers to complete their purchases by
> making an additional donation to the Obama campaign.
> 
> A pair of Palestinian brothers named Hosam and Monir Edwan contributed
> more than $31,300 to the Obama campaign in October and November 2007,
> FEC records show.
> 
> Their largesse attracted the attention of the FEC almost immediately.
> In an April 15, 2008, report that examined the Obama campaign's
> year-end figures for 2007, the FEC asked that some of these
> contributions be reassigned.
> 
> The Obama camp complied sluggishly, prompting a more detailed
> admonishment form the FEC on July 30.
> 
> The Edwan brothers listed their address as "GA," as in Georgia,
> although they entered "Gaza" or "Rafah Refugee camp" as their city of
> residence on most of the online contribution forms.
> 
> According to the Obama campaign, they wrongly identified themselves as
> U.S. citizens, via a voluntary check-off box at the time the donations
> were made.
> 
> Many of the Edwan brothers' contributions have been purged from the
> FEC database, but they still can be found in archived versions
> available for CRP and other watchdog groups.
> 
> The latest Obama campaign filing shows that $891.11 still has not been
> refunded to the Edwan brothers, despite repeated FEC warnings and
> campaign claims that all the money was refunded in December.
> 
> A Newsmax review of the Obama campaign finance filings found that the
> FEC had asked for the redesignation or refund of 53,828 donations,
> totaling just under $30 million.
> 
> But none involves the donors who never appear in the Obama campaign
> reports, which the CRP estimates at nearly half the $426.8 million the
> Obama campaign has raised to date.
> 
> Many of the small donors participated in online "matching" programs,
> which allows them to hook up with other Obama supporters and
> eventually share e-mail addresses and blogs.
> 
> The Obama Web site described the matching contribution program as
> similar to a public radio fundraising drive.
> 
> "Our goal is to bring 50,000 new donors into our movement by Friday at
> midnight," campaign manager David Plouffe e-mailed supporters on Sept.
> 15. "And if you make your first online donation today, your gift will
> go twice as far. A previous donor has promised to match every dollar
> you donate."
> 
> FEC spokesman Biersack said he was unfamiliar with the matching
> donation drive. But he said that if donations from another donor were
> going to be reassigned to a new donor, as the campaign suggested, "the
> two people must agree" to do so.
> 
> This type of matching drive probably would be legal as long as the
> matching donor had not exceeded the $2,300 per-election limit, he
> said.
> 
> Obama campaign spokesman LaBolt said, "We have more than 2.5 million
> donors overall, hundreds of thousands of which have participated in
> this program."
> 
> Until now, the names of those donors and where they live have remained
> anonymous — and the federal watchdog agency in charge of ensuring that
> the presidential campaigns play by the same rules has no tools to find
> out.
> 
> (c) 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
> 
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