Comments on: Just Call Me Derty Poiiuy. The Gray Lady Looks at Obama Donations

By: Maggie22

Maggie22 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:13:44 +0000

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.

By: pacatrue

pacatrue — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:31:42 +0000

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.

By: Lit3Bolt

Lit3Bolt — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:58:22 +0000

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.

By: StockBoySF

StockBoySF — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:56:41 +0000

“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!

By: Maggie22

Maggie22 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:37:29 +0000

“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?

By: Slamfu

Slamfu — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:32:41 +0000

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.