NY Times falsehood: pro-Obama PAC allows supporters to break legal contribution limits

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http://mediamatters.org/items/200708070007?f=h_top

The lead sentence of an August 7 New York Times article on Vote Hope, a political action committee that says it "intend{s} to deliver California for Barack Obama" in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, asked: "Have some of Senator Barack Obama's supporters figured out how to give more than the $2,300 legal maximum to back their candidate?" The article's claim -- that Vote Hope donors who have already given the maximum to Obama's campaign directly are exceeding legal limits "to back their candidate" -- is false. The $2,300 figure cited by the article is the maximum supporters can donate to a candidate's primary or general election campaign, not to "back their candidate," as the Times reported. As the article later makes clear, Vote Hope was "formed by supporters independent of the Obama campaign" and "cannot coordinate with the Obama campaign," and donors can contribute a maximum of $5,000 to the group, in accordance with campaign finance law.

From the August 7 New York Times article headlined "Digging Deep for Obama," originally published on August 6 on the Times' "The Caucus" weblog:

Have some of Senator Barack Obama's supporters figured out how to give more than the $2,300 legal maximum to back their candidate?

In a report filed last week to the Federal Election Commission, Vote Hope, a political action committee formed by supporters independent of the Obama campaign, identified its first 27 donors. Thirteen of them, mostly wealthy Californians, had also given the maximum allowed, $2,300, to Mr. Obama for the Democratic primary, and three others had given lesser amounts.