Rules for giving campaign cash to family members:

1. First, don’t do it. It’s not against any rules, but it looks just terrible.
2. If you are going to pay family members to help in your campaign, make sure they are competent and qualified.
3. Also, make sure that it does not look like they are simply pocketing the money you are giving them while doing little or no work.

Rep. Charles Rangel has violated all of these rules by paying $80,000 in campaign cash to his son to make some of the worst campaign and PAC web sites imaginable. Here’s a screen shot of Rangel’s National Leadership PAC, one of the two offending web sites (really, you would think they would pull these down):

If you look at what I’ve circled on this image, you’ll see that they haven’t even used spell check. “Maintenace.” “Give Contribuition.”

How far away are we from a viral “Leave Rangel Alone” YouTube video?