November 26, 2007
There's been a sharp shift in the campaign, as Hillary -- who ignored her opponents sniping for weeks -- is now hitting Obama with the same directness that Edwards has been hitting her.
The campaign sent out a release just now headlined, "Clinton Campaign Responds To New Revelations About Obama Campaign Finance Practices," and referring to a Washington Post story today that reports that Obama has been using his own PAC to spread money around in the early states.
The Post reports that it's a practice that's probably against the rules, but not uncommon (Biden appears to have done the same on a much smaller scale) and rarely enforced (like everything else) by the FEC.
Still, it's on a pretty large scale, and muddies up Obama's image as a reformer, which he's buffed with technical campaign finance legislation.
Clinton is demanding that Obama answer a series of question about exactly how that money was used.
Back and forth to come, Clinton statement here, and welcome to the post-Thanksgiving phase of the campaign.
ALSO: Though Clinton's PAC, HillPac, is now basically out of business, it appears to have done some spadework for her campaign back in 2006.
ALSO: AP wrote about the contributions, minus the FEC angle, on November 16.
This morning, we learned that Senator Obama has been using his leadership PAC to give political contributions to officials in the early primary states. In fact, 68 percent of contributions from his PAC have gone to those in states that are scheduled to hold nominating contests on February 5 or earlier.
It is our understanding that a candidate's campaign is barred from using the candidate's leadership PAC to benefit his or her campaign which is why we shut down HillPAC when Senator Clinton announced her run for the White House.
On the campaign trail, Senator Obama is outspoken about his desire to reform the campaign finance system so it was surprising to learn that he has been using his PAC in a manner that appears to be inconsistent with the prevailing election laws. Considering how often Senator Obama talks about his efforts to be transparent, we presume he will answer the following questions regarding the behavior of his PAC:
1. Who decided what contributions would be made by Hopefund?
2. Did any presidential campaign staff, consultants or advisers participate in any discussions about Hopefund contributions? Who?
3. Did the decision-makers know who was endorsing the presidential campaign? If so, how did they find this out?
4. Who told Hopefund which Iowa and New Hampshire candidates and committees should get contributions?
5. Are there any overlapping employees, consultants and advisers between Hopefund and the presidential campaign?
6. The Washington Post article suggests that Hopefund was dormant earlier in the year. Who made the decision to start making contributions again and on what basis was that decision made?