The Trail

$250 FROM EDRTY EDDTY

More Fake Names Found On Obama Donor Lists

The number of fake names attached to Barack Obama's campaign contributions continue to pile up as news outlets and political researchers go through thousands of pages of donor listings.

New discoveries include Edrty Eddty, who donated $250 in July 2008 and Es Esh, who gave $325 in July. Esh's address: "fhdfhdfh, Erial, NJ 08081"

"Every campaign faces the challenge of screening and reviewing its contributions," Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said. The campaign returned all the money.

Campaign finance experts say the notion that someone would donate under a fake name is not as surprising as it might seem. Some don't want to be identified to avoid getting inundated with future requests. Others are pranksters.

What has changed is the number of false donors, and that has to do with the dramatic change in the scale of Internet fundraising efforts, said Brett Kappel, a Democratic campaign finance lawyer. "Both of these campaigns have raised several orders of magnitude more money over the Internet than any previous campaign," Kappel said. "The FEC software can't even handle it, their reports are so large."

The anonymity and reach of the Internet has increased the opportunity for foreign nationals to donate as well. The Republican National Committee has filed a complaint with the FEC to review Obama's contributions for evidence of foreign influence.

An August review by the Associated Press found that Obama's campaign accepted donations from at least three foreigners.

LaBolt rejected the complaint about possible foreign donors as little more than political mischief, and he noted that McCain refunded about $50,000 in donations solicited by Mustafa Abu Naba'a, a Jordanian national who bundled contributions for McCain in concert with a Florida businessman.

-- Matthew Mosk

A COMPARISON TO 2000

Aide Says Bush Is Talking Of a McCain Comeback

The White House has made it a general practice not to comment on the presidential race. But press secretary Dana Perino waded into the campaign briefly yesterday when she was asked whether President Bush was concerned by the Republican candidate's lagging poll numbers.

"The president is convinced that John McCain has still time to close up this race," Perino told reporters on Air Force One. "He remembers when he was running in 2000 and how far he was down before the election, and he came back to win."

Bush did stage a comeback of sorts, but the situation was much different. According to Washington Post polling, Al Gore was two points ahead on Oct. 1, well within the margin of error. By Oct. 9, Bush was up 48 percent to 45 percent. Barack Obama now leads McCain by up to 10 points in major national polls, and he has broken the 50 percent barrier in many of them.

-- Dan Eggen