Euros for Obama?

Has the Obama campaign made a regular practice of accepting illegal foreign campaign contributions, as the research of Kenneth Timmerman suggests? (See too here and here.) Well, if one is to judge by an article published earlier this month by the Italian columnist Maria Laura Rodotà, in certain European circles it would appear to be an open secret that it has. Moreover, Rodotà’s account of her being inundated by e-mails from the Obama campaign suggests that the campaign has not only been accepting illegal foreign campaign contributions, but that it has been actively soliciting them. Here is what Maria Laura Rodotà writes in her October 2 column in the major Italian daily Corriere della Sera [Italian link]:

Oh God. It's my fault. And your fault. And also the fault of that friend of yours who gave her e-mail to the Obama campaign. They have been writing us for a year, the Obama people – several times a day. They've sent us videos of Barack, they've responded to criticisms, they've laid down the party line, they've sold gadgets. They've invited us to interesting events like "Camp Obama" in California....At the foot of each e-mail, they'd ask for small donations, even just five dollars - which won't even get you breakfast here in downtown Milan. We never gave a cent. The cheapskates said "you can't do that," they'd be foreign contributions; others sent donations from fake American addresses. Real or fake, live or online, you felt part of a community of like-minded persons, all normal and liberal…