The Ron Paul presidential campaign replied last week to Mona Charen’s recent column critical of him, in the form of a letter from his press secretary, Jesse Benton. The letter addresses several issues from Charen’s original piece, but one portion actually makes news that, to my knowledge, had appeared nowhere else previously.

Just over a month after Paul’s unsolicited $500 donation from neo-Nazi Don Black was revealed, Paul’s campaign has taken a position on what it will do with the money. Previously, Benton had told me the campaign was still deliberating on the issue.

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Denouncing racism and anti-Semitism as “small-minded ideologies,” and calling freedom “the antidote” to bigotry, Benton writes:

If a handful of individuals with views anathema to Dr. Paul’s send in checks, then they have wasted their money. I cannot profess to understand the motivations of Don Black as neither Dr. Paul nor I know who he is, but a simple Google search shows that his $500 contribution has netted him at least 88 news hits, including Charen’s column. Perhaps a better explanation for his “contribution” is not support for Ron, but the attention he knew he would receive.

This is definitely not a response for the faint of heart — most campaigns will part with a small amount of cash at the slightest hint of controversy. This has never been the way Ron Paul operates.

But the controversy raises a broader question. Campaigns must return illegal contributions — stolen money, straw donor money, or corporate money, for example. But what are they ethically or morally obligated to do when they receive legal contributions from one or two individuals known to be controversial?

History shows that these contributions can become a political liability. Democrats successfully harangued Republican House candidates and incumbents for their donations from Tom DeLay when he was indicted, even though he had been convicted of nothing and probably will not be. Candidates had to dump contributions they had received from Duke Cunningham before his stunning fall from grace on bribery charges.


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