Just Call Me Derty Poiiuy. The Gray Lady Looks at Obama Donations
Among the crush of political donations to the Obama campaign, you find some odd donors. Some are die hard Democrats, but others are independents and even the odd Republican here and there. Many are long time political activists, but there are quite a few first time donors as well. But it’s a few of the donor’s names that are popping up in this New York Times report.
But even a contributor who used the name “Jgtj Jfggjjfgj,” and listed an address of “thjtrj” in “gjtjtjtjtjtjr, AP,” was able to contribute $370 in a series of $10 donations in August.
A pair of donors named “Derty West” and “Derty Poiiuy,” who listed “rewq, ME” as their addresses and “Qwertyyy” or “Qwerttyyu” as either their employer or occupation, contributed a combined $1,110 in July.
I’m going to cover a few of the possibilities being suggested and leave it up to you to pry reality from the headlines. Some of these people may, as the article suggests, simply not want to release their real names out of privacy concerns. (And, apparently, share a shocking lack of knowledge about campaign finance laws.) Others may be knowingly looking for ways to thwart the law and give more than the maximum allowable limit.
For those fans of the X-Files out there, some may speculate that Team Obama is purposefully using these ploys to funnel more money into his hugely expensive campaign. From the other end of the tin foil hat spectrum, some have even speculated that these are hijinks perpetrated by McCain supporters who knew that they would find a willing mouthpiece at Newsbusters to put the story in front of the public in October.
I personally find the last two theories without merit. It’s a silly charge for any Republicans to try to raise, given how easily it is brushed away by a campaign staff with millions of small donations to wade through. And if Obama’s team was trying to pump cash in this way, they would come up with better names than Jgtj fxtxtfuffle, and the amounts in question are barely a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of millions the candidate has raked in.
Personally I suspect it’s overly enthusiastic supporters breaking the law to dump every last cent they can into The One’s efforts to claim the White House. But, as I said, I’ll leave it to you to decide.
6 Responses to “Just Call Me Derty Poiiuy. The Gray Lady Looks at Obama Donations”
Well, since no figure you listed up there is over any legal limits they are obviously not doing an end run around donation laws. As for the names, lots of people don't like to float their actual information over the net if they don't have to, especially if there is money involved. Qwerty is the giveaway on that one. The only real benny I can see for Obama's people to be doing this is to say they are getting x amount of small money donors to prove he has a bigger grassroots base than he might actually have.
“The One”? Do we have to use that kind of disparaging language? And, yes, there's plenty on the other side. But with the economy going into the toilet, and the increasingly ugly tone going on, I think it's time to take a stand against the casual use of disparagement like this. No more McNasty; no more The Chimp; no more The One.
Please. Should we be so surprised that a nation that has become a bunch of petulant schoolyard kids is rapidly falling apart? If we can't grow up now, when do we plan on getting around to it? Before or after we add the US to the list of powers that went into permanent decline?
“The One”… personally I rather like it!
As far as the donations with names like qwerty…. It's not clear to me that these are online donations… If they WERE online donations then credit cards numbers would have to be given and that would mean real names given. It's also not clear to me how much in “questionable” donations are out there. If it were $50k out of hundreds of millions in donations, that's a small percentage. But if it were $1 million, then that's pretty substantial.
As to amounts being smaller than the limits… Someone could have given the limit under his/her real name, and then given some smaller amount.
I do not think the Obama campaign would do soemthing like this. Not only have they run a clean campaign (as far as following the law, dotting the i's and crossing the t's, but back in the mid-90's Obama knocked off one if his earliest political opponents by challenging the validity of signatures to get that opponent's name on the ballot. Obama knows that any excuse an opponent can use that opponent will use. That's a lesson Obama learned early on and I'm convinced is part of his plan on running a clean campaign (in this regards…. I'm obviously not referring to statements about McCain that some people find questionable and others believe are fair).
Personally I think obvious “fake” information on donors would necessitate both campaigns to give the money to some charity, such as the Red Cross or Katrina victims. Or maybe the government to help fund the bailout of financial institutions…
(I enjoyed that last one.) This would remove any potential election law violations….
Thanks, Jazz for the posting!
But Maggie, you're not an ever so wise political moderate and independent. if you were, you would know that being a political outlier means you can soil both partisan nests with the glee of a fat kid farting on the bus.
Well, who knows from the names, right? I'm one of those people who makes up names and phone numbers for privacy. I give out a fake number to ToysRUs and half of my one-time-only accounts send emails to random@random.com. I hope that email account doesn't really exist. After viewing McCain's Ayers ad yesterday, I sent my first ever political contribution to Obama. If I could have given Joe Schmoe and random.com to them, I would have, but I happen to be aware of federal election laws. I would guess that many people donating to Obama are not aware of such laws. But in the end, who knows? The article implies that the campaigns eventually return these questionable dollars, so it may make little important difference.
I'm just depressed today. It's the combination of seeing a really serious moment, and watching the way McCain/Palin are responding to it. People are capable of doing very bad things when there's a crisis on and they are set off in the direction of a suitable scapegoat. It's depressing and scary.
But, yeah, in ordinary times a bit of light-hearted name-calling is just ducky. Just not today.