California GOP files FEC complaint over Obama's visit to grandmother

[Blue Belle]

California GOP files FEC complaint over Obama's visit to grandmother
by John Byrne
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/California_GOP_file_FEC_complaint_over_1103.html

<SNIP> In what the Washington Post called "perhaps the most ill-timed press release of the 2008 campaign," the California Republican Party announced that they'd filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Sen. Barack Obama had illegally funneled funds from his campaign account for his personal use.

The use? Visiting his dying grandmother, whose passing was announced this afternoon.

The GOP sent the release at 1:30 pm ET, a few hours before Obama's grandmother's death was announced.

"Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama's personal use," the release stated. "Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do -- at his own expense -- but it was not travel that his campaign may fund."

Federal law prohibits campaigns from using campaign funds for personal travel. Obama's campaign said beforehand that they had reviewed the trips with their lawyers and believed it was allowable. Republicans, meanwhile, contend that because Obama did not campaign in Hawaii, it should not have been budgeted as a campaign expense.

Obama announced Monday that the grandmother who brought him up had died, aged 86. He flew to Hawaii to visit Madelyn Dunham's side in Hawaii two weeks ago, fearing she would not live to see what polls suggest may be his triumph.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jesus... how low are these people. He was visiting the woman who raised him who was DYING of cancer. Do they really think that this will score them some points?

[elleng]

1. Hoped this would make headlines,

and cause some disgust among 'undecideds.'

[billyoc]

2. Remember this when the Republicans whine about a lack of bipartisanship.

[Richard D]

3. Scum.

[Blue Belle]

6. I barrowed your "evolution" picture...

I hope you don't mind. :)

[Richard D]

11. Not at all.

The picture isn't mine. I wish I could claim credit for that work of pure genius.
I just added the thought bubbles. I hope the artist who created it doesn't mind.

[eShirl]

4. doesn't surprise me in the least

they're nothing if not vindictive

[SoCalNative]

5. Egg...meet face EOM

[CLG_News]

7. Didn't Bush bin Laden use public funds to finance trips for his favorite GOPiggies

to travel all over the US to support Republican candidates, in a complete violation of the Hatch Act?
:shrug:

[Blue Belle]

12. um... I think his plane trips come out of the tax payer's money...

which really pisses me off. Talk about your redistribution of wealth...

[Blue Belle]

8. ...

Kicking for the morning crowd. :)

[rucky]

9. Now if he had called it a Grandma Allotment...

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. Piddling idiots are making themselves irrelevant for a generation

Every mean-spirited gesture further confirms the narrative we've deployed against them. there they are, the 'compassionate conservatives,' filing lawsuits over a man visiting his dying grandmother for the last time. Could they be more tone deaf? Could they more poorly read the tenor of the populace. They are irrelevant losers.

[KamaAina]

13. My coworker, a recovering repuke, just called Obama's visit "the icing on the cake"

He just got in after voting (still only about 11 out here). After proudly displaying his receipt, he told me that was "the icing on the cake" because it showed that Obama "was human". I quipped, 'A quality sadly lacking in many of the current crowd, particularly Cheney, and the CA repuke party", citing this very story. :grr: :banghead:

P.S. He has been known to lurk (a big part of the reason he's a recovering repuke). :hi:

[Vanje]

14. He could have used that money

to buy Joe Biden a $150,000 clothes shopping spree !

[tjwash]

15. I suggest he get used to it...he has 8 more years of shit like this to put up with.

Just ask Bill C. the stuff that repuke assholes are willing to spend taxpayer dollars on to slime a sitting President.

[loyalkydem]

16. My god

This guys are spinless. The Judge should laugh this out of court