Fw: Campaign contributions]

[Guest guest]

I wonder too, where all the money is coming from.....Maureen Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguishedcommentary, became a columnist on The New York Times Op-Ed page in 1995after having served as a correspondent in the paper's Washington bureausince 1986. She has covered four presidential campaigns and served asWhite House correspondent. She also wrote a column, "On Washington," forThe New York Times Magazine.Ms. Dowd joined The New York Times as a metropolitan reporter in 1983. Shebegan her career in 1974 as an editorial assistant for The WashingtonStar, where she later became a sports columnist, metropolitan reporter andfeature writer. When the Star closed in 1981, she went to Time magazine.Born in Washington D.C., Ms. Dowd received a B.A. degree in Englishliterature from Catholic University (Washington, D.C.) in 1973.WHERE DID OBAMA'S MONEY COME FROM???????New York Times EditorialBy MAUREEN DOWDPublished: June 29, 2008Go to Columnist Page »Certainly the most interesting and potentially devastatingOBAMA'S TROUBLING INTERNET FUND RAISINGCertainly the most interesting and potentially devastating phone call Ihave received during this election cycle came this week from one of theObama's campaign internet geeks. These are the staffers who devisedObama's internet fund raising campaign which raised in the neighborhood of$200 million so far. That is more then twice the total funds raised byany candidate in history - and this was all from the internet campaign.What I learned from this insider was shocking but I guess we shouldn't besurprised that when it comes to fund raising there simply are no rulesthat can't be broken and no ethics that prevail.Obama's internet campaign started out innocently enough with basic e-mailnetworking , lists saved from previous party campaigns and from supporterswho visited any of the Obama campaign web sites.Small contributions came in from these sources and the internet campaignstaff were more than pleased by the results.Then, about two months into the campaign the daily contribution intakemultiplied. Where was it coming from? One of the web site securitymonitors began to notice the bulk of the contributions were clearly comingin from overseas internet service providers and at the rate and frequencyof transmission it was clear these donations were "programmed" by a verysophisticated user.While the security people were not able to track most of the sources dueto firewalls and other blocking devices put on these contributions theywere able to collate the number of contributions that were coming inseemingly from individuals but the funds were from only a few credit cardaccounts and bank electronic funds transfers. The internet serviceproviders (ISP) they were able to trace were from Saudi Arabia , Iran ,and other Middle Eastern countries. One of the banks used for fundtransfers was also located in Saudi ArabiaAnother concentrated group of donations was traced to a Chinese ISP with asimilar pattern of limited credit card charges.It became clear that these donations were very likely coming from sourcesother than American voters. This was discussed at length within thecampaign and the decision was made that none of these donations violatedcampaign financing laws.It was also decided that it was not the responsibility of the campaign toaudit these millions of contributions as to the actual source (specificcredit card number or bank transfer account numbers) to insure that noneof these internet contributors exceeded the legal maximum donation on acumulative basis of many small donations. They also found the recordkeeping was not complete enough to do it anyway.This is a shocking revelation.We have been concerned about the legality of "bundling" contributionsafter the recent exposure of illegal bundlers but now it appears we mayhave an even greater problem.I guess we should have been somewhat suspicious when the numbers startedto come out. We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internetcontributions were from $10.00 to $25.00 or so.If the $200,000,000 is right, and the average contribution was $15.00,that would mean over 13 million individuals made contributions? Thatwould also be 13 million contributions would need to be processed. Howdid all that happen?I believe the Obama campaign's internet fund raising needs a serious, indepth investigation and audit. It also appears the whole question ofinternet fund raising needs investigation by the legislature and perhapsnew laws to insure it complies not only with the letter of these laws butthe spirit as well.IS IT RIGHT FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES TO HAVE AN INVESTMENT IN WHO BECOMES OURNEXT PRESIDENT??? IF YOU ARE IN AGREEMENT WITH THIS, PLEASE PASS IT ON. The fact that the NY Times allowed this to be printed is amazing in itself..