These are just a couple of donors to the Obama campaign. Here’s the story from Newsweek.
The Western Word
Independent Commentary about Politics, Sports, the Media, and Current Events
These are just a couple of donors to the Obama campaign. Here’s the story from Newsweek.
The Western Word 
Marty – It’s funny the media has not publicized the fact that Obama flip-flopped on public funding.Many people are starting to wonder if Obama found a way to cheat the system with small donations. Now there’s voter fraud. His group (ACORN) had their offices raided in Nevada. Americans don’t like cheaters. If that is proven true, Obama may be toast and if he wins, his administration will be damaged. No matter, it will be a fun 28 days! -Jack
I don’t think anybody in their wildest dreams (i.e. Obama) thought they would be able to raise the type of money they have from small donations when he said he was going to go with public financing. And his primary costs were extreme due to the long fight with Clinton. So I can see why he decided to go without public financing later on (he in fact is saving the taxpayer the cost of public funds for his campaign). But the bottom line to all these minor issues (Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, campaign financing, Keating 5, etc.) is they are irrelevant and to continue to discuss them at this point in the campaign is a winner only with those voters who are already solidly behind their candidate. The undecided voters want to hear about what the candidates are going to do with the current economic crisis—everything else is relatively unimportant. The more McCain’s campaign focuses on non-economic issues the farther behind he will fall and an electoral vote landslide for Obama is quite possible. And I just heard that McCain’s economic advisor has suggested that they are potentially planning to adjust coverages under Medicare to help pay for their health plan. That topic is deadly and is definitely shooting oneself in the foot politically. They should know better than to even broach a subject such as Medicare—I mean they already have a pretty good advantage among seniors but won’t for long.
Marty – I think Obama is trying to beat the system. He lied about public financing. He was for it before he was against it. -Jack
I still don’t think it’s a problem as long as the campaign doesn’t spend the money donated in excess of limits or improperly donated. And if there are still dollars in the bank then all can be made whole even if it’s after the election. The “cheaters” are the ones donating the money. One way to minimize their doing so would be, rather than returning the funds to the people making an improper donation, to require the violations to be given to the FEC to support its regulatory efforts. It would be up to the campaigns to police themselves with oversight from the FEC (i.e. the campaigns would need to prove up donations if they appear to fall outside the regulations as with Doodad Pro and Good Will). This would to a great extent keep the cheating donators from violating the rules as their violations would have a strong likelihood of, in essence, being a tax paid to the government.
Marty – Thanks for your comments. I think the Federal Election Commission found these donations, which were way over the limit allowed by law. There are probably more. There is a big problem with elections as waiting until November/December is too late to determine if someone was cheating. -Jack
I read the article yesterday about Doodad Pro and Good Will and my initial reaction was that it’s simply a matter of accounting for something that has minimal importance in relation to the bigger picture. I don’t know if there’s a time requirement for returning excess donations but if there is not then the bookkeepers in the Obama campaign (as is true in the McCain campaign as well) undoubtedly have more than they can keep up with in the heat of the campaign and will get around to sorting out details such as improper donations when the heat has died down. I recall when I was working (I’m retired) that sometimes a project I was working on would be so intense that I was unable to take the time to file my expense reports for reimbursement for up to nine months. When the cash flow was not critical to me I was able to float the expenses myself until later. Similarly, although the opposite of my situation but not different in principle, if the Obama campaign maintains enough of a cushion to cover contingencies such as improper donations, they can take care of it when they have the time in November and December. If that is the case, a very plausible explanation, then this whole issue is irrelevant.