Barack Obama, you're on notice!

This doesn't necessarily sound like it directly involved Barack Obama's campaign. Integral Resources doesn't list Obama as a client on its web page. It does however list "21st Century Democrats":

http://www.21stcenturydems.org/vision

This a progressive political action committee that pushes minority candidates. It is common during election years for pac's needing to raise money to invoke candidates names and use tactics like that, particularly a PAC that seems geared towards minority candidates using a minority candidate's name. I am guessing that this PAC was using Obama's name to draw donations and that Obama and his campaign have nothing to do with it. The Obama campaign is rolling in money at this time, I highly doubt they'd be doing such direct tele-fundraising right now anyway.

Everything you recount is depressing, Liza. What's even more depressing is that it's fucking the first of March--months and months and months before primary season even starts, and by the time primary season does roll around, the American public, with its 15-minute attention span (unless, of course, it's a celebrity scandal) will be so sick of the election process that a lot of them will use it as an excuse to not participate.
And I'm sick of it already. I'm still holding to the idea that the Democratic nominee hasn't even declared yet. That person is simply waiting until the early candidates have burned themselves out and taken each other down, and then will step forward as the relief candidate.

I said "I highly doubt" Obama needs to do direct fundraising (stating my opinion based among other things on stories like the one Liza references of Obama raising over a million in one night in Hollywood), but again Bouldin misleads people here into the idea that I was claiming someething as a fact. What was stated as a fact was "its so offbase" by you. Prove it. Give me a link where it backs u your assertion that my opinion was offbase. Just your saying its offbase doesn't make it so, thats only your opinion.

Also, Liza got a phone call from Integral Resources and blamed Obama for it. I think she is making quite the assumption there. Did the phone call actually claim they were officially representing Barack Obama's campaign, calling for his campaign? Were they asking her to make the check out directly to Barack Obama for President? It seems unfair to blast Obama for something he may not have known about. Also yes I know it is illegal, but you can find ways around all kinds of laws as a generalization. You can raise funds for a pac that supports causes that a specific candidate supports for instance. I used to work for a national pollster, I have seen how easy it is to do misleading telephone scripts. I have even done cold calls for groups calling in support of campaigns, but not in any way acting on behalf of or being paid by or even necessarily with the knowledge of the campaigns. Its done. I'm just suggesting, SUGGESTING, that the Obama campaign may well not know anything about this. I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt until facts prove otherwise. Innocent until proven guilty right? I also think Obama can probably afford to staff his own phonebanks and wouldn't need to be outsourcing to some outside company. If his blog is any indication, he wouldn't seem to have any shortage of volunteers.

...having raised or help raise at least a quarter of a million dollars over the last few years for candidates, I have some basic competence when I talk about the legalities and logic of fundraising. Those are my credentials right there. You're some clueless schmuck who manages to log on to a blog; that's your competence level.

What I'm telling you now is that it's illegal for a PAC to solicit money for a candidate in this way (unless it's a personal PAC, which the one you're citing is not). It's also ineffective, because donation limits apply, see above. So if this company was calling Liza, they were either doing business under false pretenses (which I very highly doubt, because they'd be fined out of business), or they were working as a sub-contractor for Obama, likely on a commission basis.

Which is completely fine and standard operating procedure for raising money. They probably got her name and number off someone else's fundraising list. This kind of work is often outsourced, by the way; no matter how many volunteers you have. Volunteers don't do fundraising, normally, because of compliance issues, or what you so stupidly refer to as 'finding ways around all sorts of laws'. The FEC frowns on that, jackass, as do all campaigns possessed of what you so manifestly do not have, a "clue".

Regarding your breathtakingly stupid claim that Obama does not presently need to raise money, let me just refer you to this article in WaPo, which does a nice job of laying out the dynamics. All the top Dem contenders have opted out of public financing, which means that they will be raising money non-stop between now and the end of the primary. The idea that anyone could ever have enough or 'too much' money in this day and age is preposterous.

You're doing a lousy job of defending your boy Obama here, Wallner. He's got incredibly smart people supporting him, but you're obviously not one of them. It's astonishing that someone who knows so little about politics spends so much time posting about them, frankly. Perhaps you should try blogs devoted to gardening or some such, because you sure as hell are not competent to talk about anything having to do with politics.

Hey leave the personal attacks out ok? You have your opinions and I have mine. Nobody made you the high holy expert on politics either. Your arrogance is overwhelming. I never said, not once, that what I was suggesting might be happening might be illegal. Sure its illegal, doesn't mean it isn't or couldn't theoretically be happening.

Maybe this woman that Liza spoke to, the one who barely spoke english, went off on her own with the things she said. She might well working on commission. Not a political professional but just a lady who speaks bad english working on commission who gets a hispanic/latino lady on the phone and is desperate to make a score, and says things she shouldn't have. Couldn't she thus have gotten someone like Liza on the phone and said certain things based on her-- not the campaign's but her-- assumptions about the person to whom she was talking? Yes, this could have been outsourced from a vendor hired by the Obama campaign, but that doesn't prove the Obama campaign knows about this directly, which is what Liza implied. Since we do not know if this came directly from the Obama campaign, or if Barack Obama knew about this in any way, shape, or form, Liza was out of line putting him "on notice" and asserting or implicitly implying his direct responsibility. But apparently I'm the only one who is not allowed to libel candidates or make unsubstantiated assertions around here.

Most campaigns either provide their external fundraisers with scripts to use or otherwise take steps to ensure that these contractors remain in legal compliance, Wallner. That is a very big deal, as anyone who has any idea of this will tell you. That's because the Wallnerian "Oh, let's find ways around the campaign finance laws" really is not standard practice.

However, that said, you're probably correct in asserting that Obama wasn't standing right next to the woman as she called; normally, principals aren't directly involved in this kind of nuts-and-bolts stuff. That's more fundraising director level, if that.

So, for your final posting of the day - you're allowed three, which is too generous in my mind - please explain how your squawking over Obama's purity on this is compatible with your equally assured squawking that Edwards personally fired Amanda Marcotte. The world is in awe of your mind-reading abilities, Wallner, please enlighten us.

Stephen Colbert will let people come to his place and sit before him, apologize in public and then he'll entertain perhaps moving them off his lists.

You could kill two birds for one tasty CK dish (let Anthony Bourdain whip it up maybe) if Obama comes to CK **NO hairspraying** and tells you in front of us, how sorry he is, to hear that cultural divas are ever bothered by political phone solicitors in any candidate's name, whether he knew about this particular one or not.

But wait! Then he could pledge to stop it as president, and score a three-fer! (I'd seriously consider voting for him on that basis alone.)

Liza's cultural wisdom from the nail salon and her reading of campaign clues from broken English soliciting on her land line, closely match my impressions out here far away from workaday political machines. Believe it or don't -- but this is valuable insight, folks!

Because we unschool, the kids and I are home during weekdays at times I imagine the residential pickin's are slim for phone banks. Not to put too fine a point on it but we get called a dozen times EVERY DAY, from early morning until way past dark, often after one or more of us has fallen asleep. Mostly by mortgage and satellite dish peddlers but also pollsters, non-profits and political campaigns.

I am most put out when it's a recording that has disturbed me, and there's no live person to at least vent to and tell not to call me again . . .