O'Donnell's mother on campaign payroll
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/09/17/art.odonnell.file1.odonnell.jpg caption="O'Donnell, the surprise winner in Tuesday's Delaware GOP Senate primary, has justified the rent expenditure by saying her home doubled as a campaign office."]
(CNN) – A spokesman for Republican Christine O'Donnell's Senate campaign is suggesting nothing improper was committed when it paid out funds to O'Donnell's mother, Carole, earlier this year.
"Carole O'Donnell, Christine's mother, did receive money for her services rendered on accounting and the FEC reporting for the campaign before the treasurer came onto the campaign," a spokesman told CNN Friday.
As first reported by The Daily Beast, records filed with the Federal Elections Commission show the campaign paid $3,500 to Carole O'Donnell between February and July of this year. The expenses are listed under "bookkeeping" and "financial consulting services."
It is not illegal for candidates to employ family members on their campaigns, but O'Donnell has faced a series of questions about how she makes use of her campaign finances after her former campaign manager alleged she has used funds in 2008 for personal uses, including rent.
O'Donnell, the surprise winner in Tuesday's Delaware GOP Senate primary, has justified the rent expenditure by saying her home doubled as a campaign office.
CNN Senior Producer Kevin Bohn contributed to this report.
Updated 1:32 p.m.
We all noticed how the audience prompted her on what to say in the debate. Guess that shows how she will figure out how to vote for 6 years – McConnell prompts (NO to the middle-class - YES to corporate america).
It will be fun to watch her try to deny all of her past and present stupidity and lies.
She makes pinhead Palin look like a Rhodes scholar, even though neither of them would have a snowball's chance to be one.
Birds of a feather flock together.....O'Donnell is a so not qualified , right up there with Palin and that wacko govornor in Arizona.
I am a moderate and I now lean more and more to the left with each passing month where the GOP keeps going to the radical right and fringe.
You know what they say about the pendilum and how it swings.
.Wake up people!
It is our lives we are talking about and personal freedoms , I do not want wing nuts running this country with their backward bigoted thinking!
If the media makes a big deal out of this then it would only be right to address the nepotism of the Clintons...or the thousands of other polticians who have family involved. What is fair, is fair.
Frankly, I think it is good she has her mother in her corner.
Mom may have very well worked in the campaign. Since Christine lives off of her campaign contributuions it should be no surprise that she would have her family join her. The joke is on the TEA party and everyone else that contributes to her. Once she loses to Coons she should write a book on how to become an instant millionaire as that is the only thing happening here. I totally support her taking the TEA parties money but thats it. I just hope they do the American thing and finally pay their taxes.
Well of course, all the tea partiers are slim shady or better yet a wolf in sheep's clothing!
I'm sure CNN is on O'Donnell's payroll too, given all the positive coverage they've given this idiot.
Things that make you go Hmmmmmm.
As a Democrat I am watching the situation in Delaware very carefully. While on the surface it appears to be a good thing for Coons' candidacy that a neophyte such as Ms. O'Donnell has won the primary, I wouldn't count her out just yet. While she appears to be very sincere in her desire to get the country on the right track, all of her actions in her distant past and her recent past seem to indicate that either she is not playing with a full deck, or is guilty of many of the same things she accuses others in congress of doing – misappropriating funds. She is accused by many of those who know her of spending funds from earlier campaigns on non-campaign related items, some as trivial as a game of bowling; others more serious and expensive. Many of her positions are exclusionary and naive and some are dangerous – like banning a woman's right to choose even in instances of rape or incest.. But that being said, the Republicans will be forced to embrace her candidacy and provide her with the funds she now needs to win in November. Democrats, Independents and clear-thinking Republicans need to come together and recognize that ideas such as Ms. O'Donnell's are not mainstream, and that if by some fluke she were to be elected to the Senate, she would be taking up space from someone that might actually be able to get something done. Come on people. None of us can afford to let this happen....
Anything that is questionable hurts her. This makes her harder to elect and more suspect. She much further to the right than most of Delaware as well as her supporters are mostly outside of Delaware. She will most likely lose unless her opponent can't get out the vote.
Like typical republican they are after money.
May be they have to believe her former campaign manager.
And why does that not surprise given what facts seem to be emerging re this issue every single day !
Christine "O'Deadbeat". Just another nutjob looking to make easy money witrh a bunch of non-sensical babbling (see "Half-Governor" Palin). The sad thing is, there are people out there who will vote for this moron!!
***Palin Economics***
You haven't seen anything yet. This woman is going to use all your money for personal and family expenses. You are warned. This woman just needs cash and bucks not for true election campagn but for own and personal use. Wake up people.
So. Much more concerned about the senator from New York who failed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars that he owed in taxes. Why isn't he in prison yet, the rest of us would be.
It is not illegal for candidates to employ family members on their campaigns, but O'Donnell has faced a series of questions about how she makes use of her campaign finances after her former campaign manager alleged she has used funds in 2008 for personal uses, including rent.
Rent for what, her campaign office? How ridiculous. You've got Rangel who has been indicted on a number of charges and STILL wins the Democratic primary and you're suggesting, without even getting all the facts, O'Donnell has done something wrong. I never cease to be amazed at the blatant hypocrisy.
" It is not illegal for candidates to employ family members on their campaigns, but O'Donnell has faced a series of questions about how she makes use of her campaign finances after her former campaign manager alleged she has used funds in 2008 for personal uses, including rent."
(forgot to put that in quotes"
Rent for what, her campaign office? How ridiculous. You've got Rangel who has been indicted on a number of charges and STILL wins the Democratic primary and you're suggesting, without even getting all the facts, O'Donnell has done something wrong. I never cease to be amazed at the blatant hypocrisy.
And so it begins. The sand is already shifting under the foundation of Christine O'Donnell's campaign.
....no, i'm not. Typical teabagger hypocrisy.