Campaign Finance

Here it is less than a week away from the general election, and just NOW the media are asking about Obama's campaign donations?

Not that it's too late, for polls are tightening again to the point where Gallup and Rasmussen are showing a statistical tie, and where it is entirely possible McCain could pull an upset.

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.

The campaign finance deal, which includes Obama's broken promise to regarding taking federal funds, is one of the major reasons I don't regard him as a Democrat and would be extremely hard-pressed to vote for him. A Republican would NEVER get away with this.

The plain truth is if Obama hadn't jettisoned public financing, he would be way behind McCain, even taking the economy into account. It is close not just because of the economy, but Obama's campaign has been able to waste hundreds of millions of dollars on television ads, including states yours truly doesn't believe he can actually win, such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana, though spending obscene amounts of money on these states forces the GOP to campaign there.

Sorry, I am not buying an Obama win until the results are in.

There's this tidbit:

It's still possible McCain can pull off an upset. Some public and private polling shows the race tightening nationally. And, roughly one fourth of voters in a recent AP-GfK poll were undecided or said they still could change their minds. It's also still unclear how racial feelings will affect the results in voting that could give the country its first black president.

One-fourth of voters are undecided or could change their minds? That isn't very encouraging for Democrats.