Comments on: Tilting at Windmills: A Complaint to the Election Commission about Obama’s Dave Matthews Concert in Bloomington

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:05:08 +0000

Well, I have been asked go on Abdul on 1430 AM in Indy in the morning (Thursday) to talk about the complaint. Should be on at around 7:10.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:46:35 +0000

If Gary had written my complaint, it probably would have been better than it was.

And, certainly, there could be FEC violations here. But the FEC is presently crippled by the absence of a quorum. Accordingly, any such complaint is unlikely to be acted upon; I won’t be filing one, at any rate. Some national level group or big-name blogger can do that.

By: Adam Longworth

Adam Longworth — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:20:00 +0000

I suppose the Demmies will probably try to say this letter was done by gary welsh too…they did with mine.

By: W

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:31:40 +0000

The next question is, since these tickets were obviously worth something, how will Obama record the transaction. If they were given to his campaign to hand out, then he received a donation, a donation easily hundreds of thousands of dollars in excess of federal campaign finance limits. Is an FEC complaint next?

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:08:18 +0000

I never said that the issue was a slam dunk. Either the IEC will find merit to investigate this and to clarify things for future campaign efforts of this sort, or it won’t.

I do know, however, that it will not get examined at all unless someone files a complaint, and there are serious questions that clearly merit one.

As for the “Evil Republicans hate Dave!” meme, let’s be clear. It’s great that he wants to encourage young people to vote and to be politically active. But he should also encourage them to abide by the laws that govern the elections he is encouraging activity in. I don’t think Dave has done anything wrong; the questions are about the Obama campaign and its agents.

But still, with great popularity comes great responsibility.

As for help, I don’t care to belabor the issue, but you commented elsewhere that the IDP had helped you out with the challenge.

By: Uncle

Uncle — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:53:43 +0000

Now Monroe county is flooded with “sloppy” registrations(again). The potential for more voter fraud is ammazing as the lack of cary about staying with in the law.

Gee, When are finals? When is school out? When is the election? That’s a lot of money for very few votes.

By: Josh Gillespie

Josh Gillespie — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:46:03 +0000

Hey there Thomas, let’s not say things we can’t take back. I’m a Republican who likes Dave Matthews. Although I found your comment about Dave Matthews being boring pretty funny in light of the mass craziness that took place on the Bloomington campus when word spread that Dave was coming.

By: thomas

thomas — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:32:37 +0000

I don’t think you have anything here, but that’s just gut instinct. If I were a GOP member of the IEC, the last thing I would want to do is give the Obama campaign a card to play with a finicky youth vote who may or may not show up at the ballot box in November.

“Republicans hate Dave Matthews!”

Still, and I mean this honestly, I wish you the best of luck with your complaint, especially if you are representing yourself as I did. You take a crack at me above, but let me assure you that I had ‘zero’ help from anyone at the IDP terms of preparing my case for presentation. These sort of things are the type of situations that folks love to verbally support you on, but rarely will stick their necks out to give you an official blessing.

Of course, flowery words that the IEC (and even McCain’s lawyer) had for me aside, I got buried by them — I’m probably not the best person to be giving advice.