Obama's No-Win On Financing

**Ironduke** · 02-16-2008, 20:13 PM

Quote:

Mr. Obama's Waffle

Saturday, February 16, 2008; Page A20

AS RECENTLY as November, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was unequivocal about whether he would agree to take public financing for the general election if his Republican opponent pledged to do the same. "If you are nominated for president in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?" the Midwest Democracy Network asked in a questionnaire. Mr. Obama's answer was clear. "Yes," he wrote. "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

Or maybe not. Mr. Obama deserves credit for obtaining a ruling from the Federal Election Commission that allowed him to raise money for the general election campaign but reserve the right to return the funds if he were to win the nomination and manage to arrange a cease-fire with the other side. That outcome, once improbable, is now within reach. The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, agreed long ago to Mr. Obama's deal, back when his prospects for securing the nomination seemed slim. Mr. McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, reaffirmed that pledge this week at a lunch with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

But Mr. Obama's campaign, which has been raking in money at an astonishing clip of more than $30 million a month, is starting to hedge. Speaking to the Associated Press, Mr. Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, downgraded the Obama plan to "something that we pursued with the FEC and it was an option that we wanted on the table and is on the table." Asked about the campaign's earlier position, Mr. Burton said, "No, there is no pledge."

It must be tempting for a campaign that has reached dizzying new financial heights to give up the guarantee of $85 million in federal funds for the prospect of being able to rake in even more -- and to get a financial edge over an opponent whose fundraising has been lackluster and whose party seems dispirited. It must be chastening to think about the financial advantage that Mr. McCain will have in the months leading up to the convention, when Mr. Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), his remaining Democratic opponent, may still be battling for the nomination while Mr. McCain is spending "primary" money to build the necessary architecture for the general election.

But this kind of backtracking and parsing isn't what the millions of voters who have been inspired by Mr. Obama are looking for. It's not befitting Mr. Obama's well-earned image as a champion of reform. Instead of waffling, Mr. Obama should be pushing Ms. Clinton to go beyond her spokesman's statements that she would "definitely consider" forgoing public financing.

Why not let the candidates raise as much cash as they can and save the taxpayers' money? Because it's better for voters if candidates spend more time talking to them and less time cozying up to donors. It's better for democracy if candidates are less indebted to big bundlers who have raked in six- or seven-figure amounts for their campaigns. Mr. McCain seems to understand this. What about the Democrats?

Source: washingtonpost.com

THL · 02-16-2008, 21:59 PM

I'm a little disappointed...I thought this thread was going to be about breakfast food.

Kansas Bear · 02-16-2008, 22:42 PM

I was hoping for a cook-off between Obama and Hillary!!

Debbie · 02-17-2008, 01:06 AM

My mind was totally not on breakfast food.

BudW · 02-17-2008, 02:00 AM

Every one running has waffled,whats new?

troung · 02-17-2008, 02:42 AM

Quote:

It must be tempting for a campaign that has reached dizzying new financial heights to give up the guarantee of $85 million in federal funds for the prospect of being able to rake in even more -- and to get a financial edge over an opponent whose fundraising has been lackluster and whose party seems dispirited.

Federal funds - or better said money taken from Americans...

**Ironduke** · 02-18-2008, 04:11 AM

Quote:

Obama's No-Win On Financing
By Reid Wilson

A year ago, at the beginning of his bid to secure the clean-up-Washington mantle, Barack Obama made a pact with John McCain that, if the two were to be their party's nominees, each would accept public financing for the general election. That agreement sounded far-fetched: At the time, McCain was in the middle of his high-profile free-fall in the polls, while Obama trailed Hillary Clinton by wide margins in virtually every poll.

Now, McCain is virtually the nominee-in-waiting. By his campaign's count, he has already surpassed the necessary threshold of delegates needed to win the GOP convention in St. Paul. Obama, too, is close to winning his side. He has Clinton against a wall; she needs wins in key states of Ohio and Texas in order to keep her campaign afloat. The scenario that the two candidates who most talk about reforming Washington will actually face each other in November looks more than possible, it looks probable.

Obama's own success has forced him to make a choice that opens him to attack either way. Both of his opponents, smelling potential weakness, are already hammering him, pushing him to make the choice that would give McCain a much better position from which to win the presidency.

After raising $32 million in January and about $100 million in 2007, Obama proved he can build a campaign warchest unlike any the American electorate has seen before. If he continued to raise the amount he achieved in January, Obama would have raised an additional $300 million this year, more than $100 million above John Kerry's spending in 2004. There is reason to assume that, once Obama clinches the nomination, his pace would actually pick up.

McCain, on the other hand, has never been seen as a strong fundraiser. He fell far short of his $100 million goal for 2007, raising just $40 million and ending the year with $1.5 million more in debt than he had in the bank. While his fundraising, as the nominee, will ramp up, it is reasonable to assume that, both because of McCain's slow pace and Obama's success, the Democratic candidate would have a giant financing edge over the Republican.

So McCain has something fairly significant vested in making sure both candidates stick to public financing. If they don't, Obama would be able to outspend him by leaps and bounds. If they do, McCain has a level playing field. In fact, given that the Republican National Committee has consistently outraised the Democratic National Committee, McCain would even be at something of an advantage, as the RNC could outspend its Democratic counterparts to better define the young senator.

McCain has spent much of the last several days lambasting Obama's waffling on the promise. As Democrats have done to him in recent weeks, so McCain has begun targeting Obama with verbal shots, offering a preview of the general election to come, should they face off. "I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well. This is all about a commitment that we made to the American people," McCain said in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on Friday, according to the Associated Press.

Clinton, on the other hand, made no such financing promise. Instead, she has based much of her campaign on the notion that she is the more electable candidate, and were she to face McCain, she would revel in her ability to outpace the Republican in fundraising. Her argument against Obama on public financing will likely be two-fold, and the first stage is already well underway.

"Last year, Senator Obama pledged to take public financing in the general election if the Republican nominee agreed to do so as well," Clinton communications ace Howard Wolfson said in a statement today, ahead of a conference call focused on the same issue. "Unfortunately, he broke that pledge this week. It now appears that Senator Obama made a promise to the American people that he is not keeping."

But the call for Obama to keep his word is a thinly-veiled trap. Should he do so, Clinton's electability argument will take on a new sense of purpose. If Obama is the nominee, she should argue, he will offer Republicans an opportunity to win. If she is the nominee, she can make the case to primary voters, she will show Republicans no mercy, making her the more electable candidate.

Obama faces two choices: First, he can take public financing, save some face now and open himself to new, stronger attacks on his electability from Clinton while providing McCain an even playing field. Second, he can back out and take a few weeks of assault from McCain and Clinton for going back on his word.

While financing a campaign is an issue few voters care about, choosing the second scenario could potentially cost him votes in a primary election. Choosing the first could risk the general election itself by giving McCain a chance Obama doesn't have to provide. The question cynics in his campaign have to answer: Do they really want to change the way politics works, or do they really want to win? The answer to that question will determine their choice on public financing.

Then again, if they decide they would rather change politics and increase their chances of losing in November, some Democrats, in February, March and April, could decide they would really rather just win.

Source: RealClearPolitics - Politics Nation - Obama's No-Win On Financing

FibrillatorD · 02-19-2008, 00:00 AM

Dale, Blues, other McCain-haters, where are you???

This just proves that Hillary is the most conservative candidate when it comes to campaign finance, at least as some on the WAB define McCain-Feingold as a socialist attack on free speech.

You know why Obama's waffling? Its because he is riding a pr wave unlike any other right now. Hillary continues to nail together her own coffin, letting these tunnel-vision tools working on her campaign negatively and sarcastically define Hillary as the pro-big money campaign. Meanwhile McCain continues to catch flack from his right flank for McCain-Feingold.

A serious question: Even assuming a ~3-fold discrepency between campaign coffers, does a publicly-financed general election ever hurt Barack more than it does McCain? If the answer is no, stalling like this during the primary is a legit savvy strategic maneuver on Barack's part.

Maybe the savviest move anyone could make would be for Hillary to voluntarily take the pledge this instant. Capture a slice of the "change" movement propelling Barack. But she wouldn't do that, Barack knows she won't. Because she's a conservative.

troung · 02-21-2008, 10:44 AM

McCain Loan Raises FEC Questions
The Associated Press: McCain Loan Raises FEC Questions
By JIM KUHNHENN – 6 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government's top campaign finance regulator says John McCain can't drop out of the primary election's public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason, in a letter to McCain this week, said the all-but-certain Republican nominee needs to assure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 million line of credit he obtained in November.

McCain's lawyer, Trevor Potter, said Wednesday evening that McCain has withdrawn from the system and that the FEC can't stop him. Potter said the campaign did not encumber the public funds in any way.

McCain, a longtime advocate of stricter limits on money in politics, was one of the few leading presidential candidates to seek FEC certification for public money during the primaries. The FEC determined that he was entitled to at least $5.8 million. But McCain did not obtain the money, and he notified the FEC earlier this month that he would bypass the system, freeing him from its spending limits.

But just as McCain was beginning to turn his attention to a likely Democratic opponent, Mason, a Republican appointee to the commission, essentially said, "Not so fast."

By accepting the public money, McCain would be limited to spending about $54 million for the primaries, a ceiling his campaign is near. That would significantly hinder his ability to finance his campaign between now and the Republican National Convention in September.

Complicating the dispute is the FEC's current lack of a quorum. The six-member commission has four vacancies and Senate Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads over how to fill them.

In his letter, Mason told McCain he would need the votes of four commissioners to accept his withdrawal from the system.

"The commission will consider your request at such a time as it has a quorum," Mason wrote.

Without action by the Senate, McCain could be waiting indefinitely.

"We believe that Senator McCain had a clear legal right to withdraw from the primary matching fund system and he has done so," Potter said. "No FEC action was or is required for withdrawal."

Potter said McCain will continue with his campaign and not adhere to the public financing system's limits on spending. Without a full commission, Mason has little enforcement power. Likewise, without an FEC, McCain has no way to appeal Mason's conclusion.

At issue is the fine print in the loan agreement between McCain and Fidelity Bank & Trust. McCain secured the loan using his list of contributors, his promise to use that list to raise money to pay off the loan and by taking out a life insurance policy.

But the agreement also said that if McCain were to withdraw from the public financing system before the end of 2007 and then were to lose the New Hampshire primary by more than 10 percentage points, he would have had to reapply to the FEC for public matching funds and provide the bank additional collateral for the loan.

In his letter to McCain, Mason said the commission would allow a candidate to withdraw from the public finance system as long as he had not received any public funds and had not pledged the certification of such funds "as security for private financing."

Citing the loan agreement, Mason wrote: "We note that in your letter, you state that neither you nor your (presidential campaign) committee has pledged the certification of matching payment funds as security for private financing. In preparation for commission consideration of your request upon establishment of a quorum, we invite you to expand on the rationale for that conclusion."

McCain has been an outspoken critic of the FEC and he and Mason have had ideological differences over campaign finance law for years.

"We will of course carefully review and respond to the questions asked about the collateral for the campaign's bank loan," Potter said Wednesday. "We very carefully negotiated that loan on the basis that the federal matching funds certification we held would not be security or collateral for that loan."

One former Republican FEC chairman, Michael Toner, said McCain should not need action by the FEC to pull out of public financing.

"If a candidate indicates he or she does not want the money and does so before payments are made and does not take advantage of the promise of future payments, then he or she is free to withdraw from the system," said Toner, who advised former GOP presidential contender Fred Thompson. "That's my understanding of exactly what happened here."

The dispute comes at an awkward time for McCain. While he has sought to bypass the public financing system for the primaries, he would like to participate in the system for the general election and he is attempting to hold Democrat Barack Obama to his offer to participate in the system too.

If McCain were to face Obama in the general election under public financing rules, each would get about $85 million to spend between September and Election Day in November. McCain would be the clear beneficiary because Obama has become the most prolific fundraiser in presidential politics and likely would be able to amass much more than $85 million from his donors.

Federal Election Commission: Federal Election Commission Home Page

FibrillatorD · 02-21-2008, 16:28 PM

Sullivan nails it. The Obama "waffling" story is off-target. This story is one of the McCain campaign exploiting McCain-Feingold.

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

**Ironduke** · 02-28-2008, 01:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FibrillatorD

Sullivan nails it. The Obama "waffling" story is off-target. This story is one of the McCain campaign exploiting McCain-Feingold.

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Is Tim Russert confused about the facts on this?

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Obama, let me ask you about motivating, inspiring, keeping your word. Nothing more important. Last year you said if you were the nominee you would opt for public financing in the general election of the campaign; try to get some of the money out. You checked "Yes" on a questionnaire. And now Senator McCain has said, calling your bluff, let's do it. You seem to be waffling, saying, well, if we can work on an arrangement here.

Why won't you keep your word in writing that you made to abide by public financing of the fall election?

FibrillatorD · 02-29-2008, 22:05 PM

Barack receives the vast majority of his money in <$100 donations from unaffiliated Americans, over a million of them. No problems with soft money, corporations, 527s, etc in his campaign. Financially air-tight. So your campaign-finance story isn't about ethics or keeping promises. Its about strategery, and McCain sulking over Barack having a base that is broad, active, and annoyingly democratic in principle and practice. McCain wants to box him in to spending limits because it will muzzle this healthy grassroots activity (which, I might add, after all is said and done will leave Barack lugging a mandate the size of Golgotha Hill), and he sells it as the straight talk candidate even though he's already pillaged public finance. Perfectly legal it seems, he keeps his promises, just gutting their meanings. Sleazy politics
Title says it all

Quote:

« WOULD YOU MAKE A "PLEDGE" WITH THIS MAN?

BETTING THE SPREAD.

We now have the exact language of John McCain's "second loan," and it is a legal masterpiece, albeit an ethical travesty. Based on the Washington Post report, I inferred that McCain had not excluded public matching funds from the collateral for his additional loan. But it's much more complex than that. The second loan, for $1 million, was actually a modification of the first, and so it continued to exclude the certification for matching funds from the loan's collateral. But it included this remarkable addition (which I'm going to quote in full just so no one thinks I used an ellipsis to distort the meaning):

Quote:

Additional Requirement. Borrower and lender agree that if Borrower [McCain's campaign commitee] withdraws from the public matching funds program, but John McCain then does not win the next primary or caucus in which he is active (which can be any primary or caucus held the same day) or does not place at least within 10 percentage points of the winner of that primary or caucus, Borrower will cause John McCain to remain an active political candidate and Borrower will, within thirty (3) days of said primary or caucus (i) reapply for public matching funds, (ii) grant to Lender, as additional collateral for the Loan, a first priority perfected security interest in and to all Borrower's right, title and interest in and to the public matching funds program, and (iii) execute and deliver to Lender such documents, instruments and agreements as Lender may require with respect to the foregoing.

(Here's the document: F.E.C. IMAGE 28039612468 (Page 1 of 27). From this link, you can read the document by page or produce a pdf. Much of it is blurry and boilerplate, until you get to the loan modification agreement starting page 21, which is legible.)

What does this mean? It means that rather than pledge his existing certification for matching funds as collateral for the loan, which would bind him to the system and thus the spending limits, McCain carefully pledged to seek to re-enter the system later, and to use a non-existent future certification as collateral. And while the system is "voluntary," McCain essentially traded away for cash his right to choose whether to participate in the system, and even his right to drop out of the presidential race, allowing the bank to force McCain "to remain an active candidate" in order to reapply for and qualify for funds. He was betting the spread (10 points) on his own primary performance! I don't think it's an exaggeration to say this is a promise to perpetuate a fraud on the American taxpayers: if he no longer intended to seek the presidency, he made a legally-binding promise to pretend to remain in the race just long enough to collect public money to repay the loan.

Is this illegal? Who knows. Note that it took several days of discussion among top lawyers and former FEC commissioners to figure out whether it was even possible to opt out of the public financing system after opting in and qualifying for funds. No one's ever done that. And therefore, no one's ever opted back in, after opting out, after opting in. And therefore, no one's ever borrowed on the basis of a promise to opt back in, after opting out, after opting in. Is your head exploding yet?

What we know is that McCain found a way to use the public funds as an insurance policy: If he did poorly, he would use public funds to pay off his loans. If he did well, he would have the advantage of unlimited spending.

There's a reason no one's ever done anything like this. It makes a travesty of the choice inherent in voluntary public financing, between public funds and unlimited spending. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Legal or not, it should bring to an end whatever tiny thread of credibility John McCain still has as a straight-talker or reformer of the political process.

-- Mark Schmitt

Posted by Mark Schmitt on February 18, 2008 1:01 AM | Permalink

FullTank · 03-01-2008, 00:24 AM

Do the candidates have to reveal where they got their funding from?

Specially interested in who all funded Obama.

02-16-2008, 21:59 PM	#2 (permalink)
THL *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 06-23-05 Location: 35 minutes outside Chicago (please don't refer to it as "Chi-Town"...that's annoying) Posts: 5,690 Country:	I'm a little disappointed...I thought this thread was going to be about breakfast food. __________________ "To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are."-Sholem Asch "I always turn to the sports page first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures."-Earl Warren "I didn't intend for this to take on a political tone. I'm just here for the drugs."-Nancy Reagan, when asked a political question at a "Just Say No" rally "He no play-a da game, he no make-a da rules."-Earl Butz, on the Pope's attitude toward birth control

02-17-2008, 01:06 AM	#4 (permalink)
Debbie WAB Cautioner of Poo *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 11-20-06 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 3,464 Country:	My mind was totally not on breakfast food. __________________ But when the night is falling and you cannot find the light, if you feel your dream is dying - hold tight, you've got the music in you..... New Radicals

02-19-2008, 00:00 AM	#8 (permalink)
FibrillatorD *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 03-11-07 Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Posts: 800 Country:	Dale, Blues, other McCain-haters, where are you??? This just proves that Hillary is the most conservative candidate when it comes to campaign finance, at least as some on the WAB define McCain-Feingold as a socialist attack on free speech. You know why Obama's waffling? Its because he is riding a pr wave unlike any other right now. Hillary continues to nail together her own coffin, letting these tunnel-vision tools working on her campaign negatively and sarcastically define Hillary as the pro-big money campaign. Meanwhile McCain continues to catch flack from his right flank for McCain-Feingold. A serious question: Even assuming a ~3-fold discrepency between campaign coffers, does a publicly-financed general election ever hurt Barack more than it does McCain? If the answer is no, stalling like this during the primary is a legit savvy strategic maneuver on Barack's part. Maybe the savviest move anyone could make would be for Hillary to voluntarily take the pledge this instant. Capture a slice of the "change" movement propelling Barack. But she wouldn't do that, Barack knows she won't. Because she's a conservative. Last edited by FibrillatorD : 02-19-2008 at 00:04 AM.

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02-16-2008, 22:42 PM	#3 (permalink)
Kansas Bear WAB Resident Historian *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 07-01-06 Location: Tornado Alley Posts: 1,516 Country:	I was hoping for a cook-off between Obama and Hillary!!

02-17-2008, 02:00 AM	#5 (permalink)
BudW Patron Join Date: 02-24-07 Posts: 187	Every one running has waffled,whats new?

02-21-2008, 10:44 AM	#9 (permalink)
troung A Self Important *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 08-03-03 Posts: 4,236 Country:	McCain Loan Raises FEC Questions The Associated Press: McCain Loan Raises FEC Questions By JIM KUHNHENN – 6 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — The government's top campaign finance regulator says John McCain can't drop out of the primary election's public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign. Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason, in a letter to McCain this week, said the all-but-certain Republican nominee needs to assure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 million line of credit he obtained in November. McCain's lawyer, Trevor Potter, said Wednesday evening that McCain has withdrawn from the system and that the FEC can't stop him. Potter said the campaign did not encumber the public funds in any way. McCain, a longtime advocate of stricter limits on money in politics, was one of the few leading presidential candidates to seek FEC certification for public money during the primaries. The FEC determined that he was entitled to at least $5.8 million. But McCain did not obtain the money, and he notified the FEC earlier this month that he would bypass the system, freeing him from its spending limits. But just as McCain was beginning to turn his attention to a likely Democratic opponent, Mason, a Republican appointee to the commission, essentially said, "Not so fast." By accepting the public money, McCain would be limited to spending about $54 million for the primaries, a ceiling his campaign is near. That would significantly hinder his ability to finance his campaign between now and the Republican National Convention in September. Complicating the dispute is the FEC's current lack of a quorum. The six-member commission has four vacancies and Senate Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads over how to fill them. In his letter, Mason told McCain he would need the votes of four commissioners to accept his withdrawal from the system. "The commission will consider your request at such a time as it has a quorum," Mason wrote. Without action by the Senate, McCain could be waiting indefinitely. "We believe that Senator McCain had a clear legal right to withdraw from the primary matching fund system and he has done so," Potter said. "No FEC action was or is required for withdrawal." Potter said McCain will continue with his campaign and not adhere to the public financing system's limits on spending. Without a full commission, Mason has little enforcement power. Likewise, without an FEC, McCain has no way to appeal Mason's conclusion. At issue is the fine print in the loan agreement between McCain and Fidelity Bank & Trust. McCain secured the loan using his list of contributors, his promise to use that list to raise money to pay off the loan and by taking out a life insurance policy. But the agreement also said that if McCain were to withdraw from the public financing system before the end of 2007 and then were to lose the New Hampshire primary by more than 10 percentage points, he would have had to reapply to the FEC for public matching funds and provide the bank additional collateral for the loan. In his letter to McCain, Mason said the commission would allow a candidate to withdraw from the public finance system as long as he had not received any public funds and had not pledged the certification of such funds "as security for private financing." Citing the loan agreement, Mason wrote: "We note that in your letter, you state that neither you nor your (presidential campaign) committee has pledged the certification of matching payment funds as security for private financing. In preparation for commission consideration of your request upon establishment of a quorum, we invite you to expand on the rationale for that conclusion." McCain has been an outspoken critic of the FEC and he and Mason have had ideological differences over campaign finance law for years. "We will of course carefully review and respond to the questions asked about the collateral for the campaign's bank loan," Potter said Wednesday. "We very carefully negotiated that loan on the basis that the federal matching funds certification we held would not be security or collateral for that loan." One former Republican FEC chairman, Michael Toner, said McCain should not need action by the FEC to pull out of public financing. "If a candidate indicates he or she does not want the money and does so before payments are made and does not take advantage of the promise of future payments, then he or she is free to withdraw from the system," said Toner, who advised former GOP presidential contender Fred Thompson. "That's my understanding of exactly what happened here." The dispute comes at an awkward time for McCain. While he has sought to bypass the public financing system for the primaries, he would like to participate in the system for the general election and he is attempting to hold Democrat Barack Obama to his offer to participate in the system too. If McCain were to face Obama in the general election under public financing rules, each would get about $85 million to spend between September and Election Day in November. McCain would be the clear beneficiary because Obama has become the most prolific fundraiser in presidential politics and likely would be able to amass much more than $85 million from his donors. Federal Election Commission: Federal Election Commission Home Page

02-21-2008, 16:28 PM	#10 (permalink)
FibrillatorD *Senior Contributor* Join Date: 03-11-07 Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Posts: 800 Country:	Sullivan nails it. The Obama "waffling" story is off-target. This story is one of the McCain campaign exploiting McCain-Feingold. The Daily Dish \| By Andrew Sullivan

03-01-2008, 00:24 AM	#13 (permalink)
FullTank Patron Join Date: 07-11-07 Location: West Des Moines, Iowa Posts: 259	Do the candidates have to reveal where they got their funding from? Specially interested in who all funded Obama.

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