Obama Campaign Uses Illegal Online Gambling to Raise Funds
In its zeal to collect money any way possible now that the candidate has reversed earlier promises and declined public financing, the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama may have violated laws against gambling. The state of Minnesota is reviewing a funding appeal on the campaign's national website, which calls for donations of $5 up to the limit of $2300, and offers the chance that any donor "could be one of 10 supporters chosen to meet Barack backstage" in Denver.
Tom Barrett, head of the Minnesota Gambling Control Board, has asked that the state Department of Public Safety look into the possibility that the offer constitutes an illegal raffle. Raffles, which take payment in exchange for prizes awarded by chance, are legal in Minnesota only by non-profit charities.
The board's website specifically forbids political campaigns from conducting a raffle of any kind.
Spokesmen for the campaign denied the offer was a raffle, and insisted the ten winners would be chosen by judgments involving their individual histories and stories, not by chance, although this was not stated in the offer.
Barrett said the contest could be made legal either by stating it was void in Minnesota, or by opening the offer to any who wished to participate, removing the contribution qualification.
Although this appeal for money was probably designed without direct input from Obama, it clearly aims for the mass donations expected when the candidate changed his stance on public financing, and broke his own high standards of putting the public good first, instead acting on his own self-interest.
The best move for the campaign would be to change the wording of the appeal to make it legal, and then Obama should distinguish himself by admitting an error in judgment by not accepting public financing.
