Cheatin' to Get It Done

Were you amazed by that amazing fund raising machine from all those small donors? Maybe less so when the donors are like Mr. Good Will of Austin, TX who lists his employer as "Loving" and his occupation as "You." Mr. Good Will has given an amazing $17,375 to Team Barry, all in under $25 donations. Now why would a fine upstanding citizen like Mr. Will do that? Turns out that the names of donors giving less than $200 do not have to be reported. (Although John McCain's camp voluntarily does so.) There are legal maximums that people can donate to a campaign, but before we accuse Obama of accepting illegal campaign contributions, I should point out that there may be dozens of Mr. Good Wills living in Austin, so this could all be on the up and up. Ken Timmerman at Newsmax has more:

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.

Another tidbit, the screen shot above is an older version of Obama's web site where Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was invited to break U.S. campaign finance law and donate to the campaign. According to Andrew McCarthy at NRO:

The would-be President of the World is raising goo-gobs of money from foreigners outside the United States (a violation of federal law), and matching goo-gobs of money inside the United States from phantoms who are blowing out the individual contribution limits by, among other devices, making up identies and breaking up contributions in amounts less than $200, for which reporting requirements are less rigorous.

Of course, the MSM is so in the tank for Obama that none of this will get an airing from them. I look forward to seeing the independent prosecutor revived to investigate all this after the Republicans regain the House and Senate in 2010.

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