In another example of putting the cart before the horse, Barack Obama has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel about a possible position as White House chief of staff, Democratic officials said on Thursday as the election hits the homestretch; the disclosure comes as John McCain was in Ohio, focusing on pocketbook issues.  As expected, Obama was in Florida, telling a crowd that McCain has been in lockstep with President George Bush for eight years and consumers are paying a price.

Emanuel was a veteran of former president Bill Clinton’s White House and has made a meteoric rise up the house leadership ladder since his election to Congress.  In recent weeks, both Obama and McCain have authorized their staffs to start transition proceedings, despite the fact that only one – in this case, McCain (and you heard it here first at The Republican Temple) – will win the election; as of this writing, no job offers have been made by either Obama or McCain.

I do realize that at this point of the election, the transition process does eventually have to take place.  But with this election being very close, I think that Obama better put on hold the measuring of the drapes and out away his shopping list of “dream appointments”.  This race isn’t over – not by a long shot.

ACORN cannot seem to stay out of legal hot water these days; this time, a former employee of the beleaguered organization comes clean.  And yes, Barack Obama is involved as you probably have assumed.  John Fund of the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Anita MonCrief, a former employee of ACORN, testified in a Pennsylvania court on Wednesday that the group’s quality-control efforts were “minimal or non-existent” and just a facade.  She also stated that ACORN was given several donor lists by some Democratic presidential organizations, including – you got it – Barack Obama to solicit contributions.

As what is considered old news, Obama’s campaign has denied having any ties to ACORN, but apparently, Obama’s link to the group is extensive; a good example is the fact that in 1992, he headed a registration for Project Vote – an ACORN partner back then.  so successful was Obama at his job that he was appointed as a top trainer for ACORN’s conferences.  Three years later, Obama represented ACORN in a major case upholding the constitutionality of the Motor Voter Act which created the mandated, nationwide postcard voter registration system that ACORN employees used to flood election offices with fake registrations.

During her court appearance, Ms. MonCrief testified that in 2007 Project Vote development director Karyn Gillette informed her that she had direct contact with the Obama campaign and had obtained their donor lists; she also added that she was given a spreadsheet for use in soliciting potential donors who had spent the maximum on donations already made to the candidate but who could contribute to the voter registrations.  As expected, Project Vote denied the charges.  Ms. MonCrief added that when she had difficulty with what appeared to be duplicate names on the list, Ms. Gillette told her that she would get a revised copy from the Obama campaign.

Further along in her testimony, Ms. MonCrief said that she was upset by ACORN’s “Muscle for Money” program, which she said intimidated businesses ACORN didn’t like into paying “protection money” – Mafia-like, no? – in the form of grants.  Meanwhile while this was going on, ACORN suit Brian Kettering stated that the group only wanted to “change corporate behavior”.  She further added that she became disillusioned with ACORN when she discovered that the group was ran as a personal possession of Wade Rathke, founder of the group back in 1970 who ran the organization until he stepped down this summer.

ACORN has insisted that they operate with strict quality controls, turning in as required by law, all registration forms – even the bogus forms.  Former ACORN employees tell a totally different story.  Obama has delcined to criticize ACORN, despite these allegations, telling anyone in the left-leaning media that he doesn’t need ACORN’s help in doing “get-out-the-vote” efforts of his own.  That may very well be, but if it wasn’t for ACORN, his political career would be nearly inconsequential.

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Great piece by the RNC which depicts Barack Obama’s plan to raise taxes on families and small businesses – which begs the question: What’s the number?

Here’s another proof positive that Barack Obama is character-deficient; according to FOXNews.com, John McCain slammed the Los Angeles Times for refusing to release a videotape which shows Obama singing the praises of Rashid Khalidi, a Chicago professor who served as a spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) when it was a US-designated terrorist group.

While on campaign business in Florida, McCain spoke to two radio stations, suggesting that there’s a double-standard in reporting by the Times and also said that if it was him hanging around with Neo-Nazis, then the tape would have been out already.  The Times says that it is standing by its “promise” not to show the tape, which it received from an anonymous source.  The newspaper also has not provided a transcript  of the 2003 farewell party for Khalidi; among attendees at the party were (surprise, surprise!!) Weather Underground founders William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn.

McCain adds on to this, adding,

“Apparently this is a tape with a dinner that Mr. Ayers … was at, and also … one of the leading spokespersons for the PLO. Now, why that should not be made public is beyond me.  “I guarantee you, if there was a tape with me and Sarah Palin and some neo-Nazi or one of those, you think that that tape wouldn’t be made public? Of course, Americans need to know, particularly about Ayers, and also about the PLO. So hopefully there will be enough pressure on the L.A. Times that it’ll come out, but its really unfortunate that we have to go through this.”

Where it gets interesting is that the Times will not reveal how it obtained the tape of Khalidi’s farewell party nor would the newspaper release it.  Paper spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said that the paper is not interested in revisiting the story.  Khalidi, when asked about the party and his relationship with Obama, said on Wednesday that he refused to speak on the matter; in an email to FOXNews.com, Khalidi said,

“I am not speaking to the press at this time, and do not speak to Fox in any case, as I just wrote one of your colleagues.”

Khalidi, who from 1976 to 1982, was reportedly a director of the official Palestinian press agency, WAFA, is currently the Edwards Said professor of Arabic Studies at Columbia University.  A pro-Palestinian activist (activist being a recurring theme these days), Khalidi has been a strong critic of American foreign policy and of Israel, which he has accused of establishing an “apartheid system” of government.

This is troubling on several fronts.  What we have here is an individual with obviously anti-American and anti-Israel views, which is dangerous considering the current Middle-East climate.  Another sticking point is the fact that Obama has a relationship with Khalidi yet downplays it as just another minor detail.  The American public, for the most part, does not who the real Obama is. 

But we know this much about him: he hangs around unsavory characters (the shopping list including William Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Khalidi, and I am sure there are others that I have left out) and yet either denies the relationships between himself and these individuals or minimizes them as being irrelevant.  I am thinking that more names will come out between now and Election Day; once they do, The Republican Temple will out them right here, so stay tuned.

We already know that the Barack Obama campaign has much deeper financial pockets than the John McCain campaign; what a lot of people do not know is how this came to pass.  One little hint is the mysterious credit card donations that seem to be accepted by the Obama people, without any vetting process, according to Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post.  Specifically, Obama’s campaign is allowing donors to use the virtually untraceable “pre-paid credit cards” which could be used to evade donation limits and to possibly mask a donor’s identity.

With all of these credit card donations in the loop, the campaign has chosen not to use simple security measures that are designed to weed out potentially illegal or anonymous contributions; Obama’s team has stated that its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has *wink wink* refunded any improper donations.  Campaign lawyers have said that the problem with the “pre-paid” cards is that it is very difficult to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who have exceeded the limits, government contractors or even individuals who are barred from giving to a federal campaign from making contributions.

As expected, the suits at the Obama headquarters said yesterday that their “back-end review” (whatever the hell that is) has carefully scrubbed contributions – including gift cards – to prevent illegal monies from landing in the Obama campaign account.  As expected, Team Obama lawyer Robert Bauer replied to this,

“I’m pretty sure if I took my error rate and matched it against any other campaign or comparable nonprofit, you’d find we’re doing very well. I have not seen the McCain compliance staff ascending to heaven on a cloud.”

This disclosure from the Obama campaign stemmed initially from a response to questions that came from The Washington Post about the case of one Mary T. Biskup, a retired insurance manager from Missouri; she mysteriously turned up on Obama’s FEC reports as having made $174,800 in donations to the Obama campaign.  Federal guidelines limit donations to a $2,300 limit.  Biskup, who had scores of Obama donations attributed to her, said in an interview that she has never contributed to the Obama campaign; in addition, she added that her credit card was never charged with any transactions – which tells you that someone or a group used her name and made the donations with another card.

When the campaign was asked whether they took any steps to match a donor’s name to the credit card that was being used, the campaign replied in an email (not surprisingly),

“Name-matching is not a standard check conducted or made available in the credit card processing industry.  We believe Visa and MasterCard do not even have the ability to do this.  Instead, the campaign does a rigorous comprehensive analysis of online contributions on the back end of the transaction to determine whether a contribution is legitimate.”

Juan Proano, whose firm handled the online contributions for the John Edwards and John Kerry presidential campaigns, said that it is possible to require donors’ names and addresses to match those that are on their credit card accounts; however, Proano also said that some campaigns – including Obama’s presumably – are reluctant to impose that extra layer of security for the transactions.  Then there is the finger-pointing as expected.

According to Obama communications director Dan Pfeiffer, no organization can fully insulate itself from these issues.  He goes on to accuse the McCain campaign of accepting contributions from such donors as ‘A for You’, ‘Adorable Manabat’, ‘The Gun Shop’, Jesus II’ and hundreds of anonymous donors – none of which that have been proven by the Obama campaign.  But R. Rebecca Donatelli, who handles all online contributions for the McCain campaign, said that security measures are standard for all fundraising efforts throughout the campaign; she also added that she was “flabbergasted” upon learning that the Obama campaign accepts prepaid cards.

There have been internal discussions within the FEC about how to ensure that donors do in fact use their own credit cards, with election lawyer Brett Kappel stating that the FEC has never fully addressed the issue on how to ensure that donors use their own credit cards.  Which is unfortunate; what all of this does is provide yet another reason for some type of federal financing reform that addresses the issue of donation policy during federal primaries and elections.  The Obama campaign isn’t stupid as they have somehow found a way to accept monetary donations illegally – at least illegally in my opinion.  But then again, the warning shot was fired when Obama made the pledge to accept public financing of his campaign then reneged on that promise.  That basically gave the Obama campaign carte blanche in finding ways to get campaign monies illegally, which is unfortunate.

On Tuesday, New Mexico Victory announced that U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (Arizona), Presdient of the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce Al Zapanta and former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer will take part in “The Western Business Tour” in Texas and New Mexico on October 29 to rally support for John McCain, Sarah Palin and the entire Republican ticket.  All three participants will visit small businesses in El Paso, Alamogordo and Las Cruces to discuss why McCain’s economic policies to lower taxes will create jobs and benefit Americans.  The tour will make the following stops:

• WHO: U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (AZ)
  Al Zapanta, President of the U.S-Mexico Chamber of Commerce
  Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer
  WHAT: Western Business Tour
  WHEN: Wednesday, October 29, 2008, from 7:30 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. MDT
  WHERE: Lucchese Boots
  70 Walter Jones Boulevard
  El Paso, TX 79906
• WHO: U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (AZ)
  Al Zapanta, President of the U.S-Mexico Chamber of Commerce
  Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer
  WHAT: Western Business Tour / Panel Discussion
  WHEN: Wednesday, October 29, 2008, from 11:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. MDT
  WHERE: Eagle Ranch Pistachio Groves
  7288 Highway 54/70
  Alamogordo, NM 88310
• WHO: U.S. Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (AZ)
  Al Zapanta, President of the U.S-Mexico Chamber of Commerce
  Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer
  WHAT: Western Business Tour
  WHEN: Wednesday, October 29, 2008, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. MDT
  WHERE: Mesilla Valley Pecan Inc.
  2555 Lakeside Drive
  Las Cruces, NM 88007

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I love when Joe Biden speaks. This time, he is giving his visualization of what a Democratic Congress would be like. And he has the audacity to state that we think like they do.