Foreign Nationals: Contributions to McCain?

On my blogs, I get many visitors from "overseas," paticularly Australia, Brazil, Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, New Zealand, and Portugal, and Eastern Europe. I even had one from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. One of my loyal visitors is pro-McCain (and pro-Palin) Australian Jim Fryar. You can find his blog at: http://jimmunro.blogspot.com. I very hope you'll visit Jim's site regularly.

Many of my non-U.S. visitors want to support John McCain, and I get asked if they can make contributions to http://JohnMcCain.com.

For example, I got the following comment from a French Canadian, Tym, who blogs at: http://tymachine.blogspot.com.:

Stephen:

"Is it legal for Canadians and people from other countries to financially contribute to the John McCain campaign?

"I see that Barack has managed to gather 3 times more money than John did. Does that do him any good to his tarnished image?"

The short answer to Tym's question about people from outside the U.S. contributing directly (key word) to McCain is: No. It's against U.S. law for non-U.S. citizens to donate to political campaigns (key phrase) under the control of candidates.

However, if a committee or group is outside the control of a presidential candidate, foreign national can contribute. Such donation would be similar to ones made, for example, to the American Red Cross or a U.S. church.

In my previous column, I strongly urged all people supportive of John McCain -- Republicans, Democrats, Independents, foreign nationals, and U.S. citizens -- to join one of the (many) groups of Hillary Clinton Supporters for McCain.

I specifically mentioned http://clintons4mccain.com. That's a group (nearly 1300 members and growing fast) that opposes the election of Barack Obama -- and backs the election of John McCain.

Why can foreign nationals send contributions to Clintons for McCain? Because it's a group not under the control of McCain's "official" campaign. Donating to that group (which I urge you to do) would be no different than donating to me (which I urge you NOT to do).

Clintons for McCain is not a group fixated on debating the pros-and-cons of Mrs. Clinton's views. In fact, it's a group where most members -- although not all -- agree with Sen. Clinton on her political positions. Instead, Clintons for McCain is dedicated to preventing the election of Barack Obama and encouraging the election of John McCain.

Thus, I urge what we call "foreign national" to contribute as much as they can to such groups. I'm sure a $10 contribution (which I've made) would be welcome. I bet larger contributions might be even more welcome.

CNN noted today (what took them so long?) that there's tremendous interest outside the U.S. in this country's presidential election. I hope a lot of that interest will translated into contributions to organizations supportive of McCain -- but not under the control of his campaign. Clintons for McCain would be a great place to start.