Monday, August 04, 2008

The generosity of Hess employees

As worrisome as some of the polling trends have been recently, I think there's a decent chance that, between the McCain camp's violations of campaign finance law that have already occurred, and the high likelihood of even more damaging violations coming to light, one of them might actually attract the notice of the national media and reach the level of scandal.

Today TPM has been doing work on the strange inflow of donations from Hess executives and employees after McCain's (not to be confused with Obama's) reversal on offshore drilling. Of particular interest to them are two donations of $28,500 each from a Hess-employed couple who apparently live in a rented apartment in Flushing, an area known more for its sports arenas than its concentration of high net worth individuals.

Sure, it seems so clumsy that you'd think there was no way the McCain campaign would try it. But politicians are never as circumspect as you'd think about this stuff. Remember Hillary bundler Norman Hsu and the three dozen Hill-raisers supposedly living in the same NorCal shanty?

It's not much to get excited about at this point, but I think of the campaign finance thing as a little call option or lottery ticket that may end up getting redeemed for the total implosion of John McCain's support.

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