'A Wide Scale Problem for the Obama Campaign'

Obama's got some explaining to do. Of course, the media will largely ignore this and go back to making up stories about Sarah Palin.

The Republican National Committee is hosting a conference call right now outlining the Federal Election Commission complaint it will file Monday accusing the Obama campaign of taking contributions from foreign nationals who are banned by U.S. law from giving to U.S. federal candidates.

Good Will was unavailable for comment.

H/T Instapundit.

We're not talking chump change here either folks. As noted here, it could be well over $200 million in illegal foreign money.

More than half of the whopping $426.9 million Barack Obama has raised has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won't disclose.

And questions have arisen about millions more in foreign donations the Obama campaign has received that apparently have not been vetted as legitimate.

Normally, this would disqualify a candidate, but the media doesn't want to go near it for the most part, and if they do, they'll call you racists for pointing it out.

Update: Remarkably, Newsweek notices this minor little problem of massive campaign fraud, which the RNC cites.

"When we were made aware of an ad for a Nigerians for Obama fundraiser in a Nigerian paper, our attorneys sent a letter to the paper making it clear the event had nothing to do with our campaign, and that we would not accept contributions from the event," one Obama aide said.

Shocker: RNC Holds Huge Money Advantage Over Democrats

Go figure. All we've heard is doom and gloom about the GOP's chances this fall and what a cash cow Barack Obama is. But Obama and John McCain basically raised the same amount of money in May and now word comes the GOP holds a massive edge over the DNC.

Hmm. Maybe they have a strategy after all.

Led by chairman Mike Duncan, the Republican National Committee ended May with 13 times more money in the bank than its Democratic counterpart, and raised five times as much money in the same time frame.

As The Times' campaign finance guru Dan Morain points out, the sums are significant as presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain squares off against the far more richly-funded Sen. Barack Obama for the last 136 days of the general election campaign.

Based on the numbers so far, the Republican Party appears poised to act as the financial equalizer in the fall campaign. The RNC disclosed that it ended May with $53.5 million in the bank, compared to $3.9 million for the Democratic National Committee, which is headed by Howard Dean.

Thanks to the continuing popularity and fundraising attraction of President Bush, the RNC continued to vastly out-raise the Democratic party, amassing $24.4 million just in May.

Of that, it raised $7.1 million in small donations of $200 or less, the so-called unitemized receipts. The RNC raised more in small increments than the DNC’s total take in May of $4.8 million.

Looks like Democrat sugar daddy George Soros will have to pump more millions into their coffers.

This also makes Howard Dean look incredibly inept. In a year Democrats are alleged to hold huge advantages, he's been outraised by $50 million?

Opposition to Amnesty Paying Off for State GOPs

Donations to the Republican National Committee may be dwindling, but in many states the fierce opposition is paying off handsomely.

President Bush's immigration bill is hurting fund-raising by the Republican National Committee, but fierce grassroots opposition to the legislation is helping several state Republican parties, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Monday in The Washington Times.

Tina Benkiser, chairwoman of the Republican Party in the president's home state of Texas, says raising money has been successful "in large part to our principled stance against illegal immigration."

Since the beginning of 2006, when substantial immigration debate began, "the Republican Party of Texas has experienced an exponential increase in direct mail donations from supporters statewide," she said.

Both phone and direct-mail fundraising remain strong for Republicans in Michigan, said state chairman Saul Anuzis.

"In Michigan, seven out of nine congressional Republicans oppose the bill, our activists are publicly opposing amnesty and we are also re-establishing our brand image by fighting a Democrat attempt to increase taxes," Mr. Anuzis said. "These issues are keeping our people engaged, where otherwise we could feel a [donations] drop off."

Read the rest.

RNC Dismisses Phone Solicitors

There's major trouble brewing for the Republican National Committee, and hazard a guess as to why.

The Republican National Committee, hit by a grass-roots donors' rebellion over President Bush's immigration policy, has fired all 65 of its telephone solicitors, Ralph Z. Hallow will report Friday in The Washington Times.

Faced with an estimated 40 percent fall-off in small-donor contributions and aging phone-bank equipment that the RNC said would cost too much to update, Anne Hathaway, the committee's chief of staff, summoned the solicitations staff last week and told them they were out of work, effective immediately, the fired staffers told The Times.

The national committee yesterday confirmed the firings that took place more than a week ago, but denied that the move was motivated by declining donor response to phone solicitations.

"The phone-bank employees were terminated," RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt wrote by e-mail in response to questions sent by The Times. "This was not an easy decision. The first and primary motivating factor was the state of the phone bank technology, which was outdated and difficult to maintain. The RNC was advised that we would soon need an entire new system to remain viable."

Fired employees acknowledged that the committee's phone equipment was outdated, but said a sharp drop-off in donations "probably" hastened the end of the RNC's in-house phone-bank operation.

What, pray tell, precipitated such a dropoff?

"Everyone donor in 50 states we reached has been angry, especially in the last month and a half, and for 99 percent of them immigration is the No. 1 issue," said the former employee.

Maybe some illegal aliens can do the donating Republicans refuse to.

UPDATE: Expanded Washington Times version here, with Fishwrap roundup.

Also at Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Ed Driscoll.com, Sensible Mom, American Pundit, Six Meat Buffet, Blue Crab Boulevard, Moonbattery, Wizbang!