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SHOCKING: FEC plans to audit McCain’s campaign funds — but probably not Obama’s Print E-mail
Blog - The Lance Haynie Blog
Written by Lance R. Haynie   
Tuesday, 11 November 2008 15:41
Well its actually not really shocking now is it? The Barack Obama campaign has had impressive numbers as far as fundraising is concerned, and by impressive I mean record shattering. The well to do campaign has millions of dollars left over from the campaign; from contributors that the campaign refuses to reveal. So why is the FEC not inclined to check him out?

Messiah asside, its because hes rolling in it, they are less inclined to check him out.

 

Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because the sheer volume of cash he raised and spent minimizes the significance of his errors. Another factor: The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president.

McCain, on the other hand, accepted the $84 million in taxpayer money, which not only barred him from raising or spending more – allowing Obama to fund many times more ads and ground operations – but also will keep his lawyers busy for a couple years explaining how every penny was spent…

[I]ronically, the historic volume of Obama’s small contributions, which may have made it tough for the campaign to weed out problem donations, may also help spare Obama an audit.

That’s because the byzantine formula the FEC staff uses to determine whether a campaign has engaged in “substantial” violations of federal election rules – the trigger to recommend an audit to commissioners – takes into account the size of the campaign’s coffers, according to David Mason, who served as a Republican appointee to the FEC until this year.

“So if a House campaign makes a $100,000 error, that’s huge and they’re likely to get audited,” he said. “If a campaign the size of the Obama campaign has a $100,000 error, then maybe not. It would depend on what the error is, obviously,” he said, explaining that mere accounting snafus are unlikely to prompt an audit. More serious and systemic problems, such as illegal contributions, result in campaigns getting tagged with more “audit points,” Mason explained. “If you get enough audit points, you get audited,” he said, adding “nobody outside the commission would know how many audit points the Obama campaign has.”
 

The McCain campaign has requested a full audit of the Messiah's campaign, but alas it will take 4/5 of the commissioners to put the review in motion. You can put that along with Obamas "spread the wealth campaign" if you ask me. With the money he has managed to receive it should almost be mandatory to check those sources should it not?

 

Was it not "transparency" at the core of Dear Leaders platform of change? Where did that go?