For the record, my position on campaign financing is that candidates should be able to take unlimited amounts of money from American citizens (no donations from foreign entities) with the requirement that the name and amount of the donation must be disclosed online on the campaign's Web site within 48 hours of receipt.

Having said that, it appears that we may never know exactly how extensive the campaign finance fraud of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign was -- because the Federal Elections Commission won't be investigating. Why won't they investigate? Because Obama turned down public financing.

The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul.

Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend.

Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because the sheer volume of cash he raised and spent minimizes the significance of his errors. Another factor: The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president.

Why even bother with public financing anymore? There's more money and less investigatory and regulatory annoyances with simply rejecting the system. And, as President-elect Barack Obama's campaign has demonstrated, there's no need to worry about the press fretting publicly, loudly and repeatedly about "buying the election" anymore.

Once again, the only problem, and a law the GOP should be attempting to shame the Democrats in control of Congress into passing, is removing the exemption that allows sub-$200 donors to remain anonymous. Candidates should be required to release all names.