No story here? Giving to Obama campaign is easy

Barack Obama's great success at fundraising has been no secret.

His ability to raise more funds in the Democratic Primary than then-frontrunner Hillary Clinton put considerable focus the fund-raising magic, and eventually led to Obama's decision to forgo public financing in spite of his pledge to the contrary.

In turn, the mainstream press has dutifully noted Obama's month-by-month clobbering of McCain in the realm of fund-raising while noting the Illinois senator's record-breaking numbers.

Underneath that big story, however, lie other stories that the mainstream press has failed to plumb.

As growing numbers of bloggers are discovering, it is remarkably easy to donate to the Obama campaign.

National Journal very recently took notice with a story on the subject:

To test the campaigns' practices, this author bought two pre-paid American Express gift cards worth $25 each to donate to the Obama and McCain campaigns online. As required by law, the campaigns' Web sites asked for, and National Journal provided, the donor's correct name, location and employment. The cards were purchased with cash at a Washington, D.C., drugstore, and the campaigns' Web sites were accessed through a public computer at a library in Fairfax County, Virginia.

The Obama campaign's Web site accepted the $25 donation, but the McCain campaign's Web site rejected it.

Why the difference? Bloggers (such as Ed Morrissey at Hot Air) have explored the issue, reporting that online campaign donations are comparable to online retail. They report that the Obama campaign is evidently not even using the ordinary safeguards that prevent credit card fraud.

NewsMax, which has yet to establish a record of reliability, also published a story on political contributions. The NewsMax story focused on suspicious FEC filings, and lo and behold the facts appear suspicious indeed. Take one of the examples from the NewMax story, Jerry Rubin of Whitefish Bay, Wis. From what I understand, the Obama campaign is responsible for making the FEC filings, and one of the filings mentioning Rubin has his tab for the election cycle at $6900. That's well in excess of the maximum $2300 per year, representing three years' worth of maximum annual donations in just one election cycle. But there's more. That filing was from January of 2008. The same Jerry Rubin is listed with another $2300 contribution in June, and the Obama campaign updated the total accordingly on the FEC filing: $9200 for the election cycle.

What's going on, here?

Whatever it is, it isn't an isolated event.

So much for Obama's administrative ability as reflected in campaign organization, eh?