Illegal McCain Contributions ?

John McCain's latest flip-flop has turned out to be rather lucrative. A few months ago, McCain was against more off-shore drilling. When he flip-flopped on this a couple of weeks ago, he received a $1.2 million influx of cash from the oil industry. A total of $313,500 came from officials of the Hess Corporation.

Guess what one of the specialities of the Hess Corporation is? That's right -- deep-water oil drilling! Now, it's not unbelievable that upper-echelon executives of Hess would make some large contributions to further the chances of their corporation to expand their drilling. In fact, it would be odd if they didn't.

But Campaign Money Watch uncovered a donation that does seem unlikely. It seems that $61,600 of the $313,500 from Hess was donated by Alice and Pasquale Rocchio. Now these are not highly-paid executives of the corporation.

Alice Rocchio is an office manager for Hess, while her husband Pasquale is a foreman at Amtrak. They live in an apartment in Queens (N.Y.) and drive a 1993 Chevy Cavalier. They have never donated to a federal campaign in the past.

Their donation of over $61,000 is a huge amount of money for this couple to be giving. Campaign Money Watch suspects the couple may be acting as a conduit for corporate donations, and that is clearly illegal. Did the corporation think no one would notice if they funneled a little extra money through this middle-class couple?

This contribution smells of corruption, and should be thoroughly investigated.