So John McCain raised $15million last month. Does that mean that

[hedgehog]

all talk about public financing is going to fade away?



Cause baby, IT'S ON!

[tekisui]

1. He's already committed, right?

[JeffR]

2. He should be, but it's too late.

Apparently he's going to run for president instead.

[tekisui]

3. Nominated for a DUzy!

[JeffR]

4. Thanks!

No DUzy for me, but it's nice to be appreciated.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. John McCain has a legal problem that he is not dealing with.

He opted in to the public financing of his campaign, borrowed money against the value of that action, and got himself onto the Ohio ballot without qualifying by signatures through the exemption for opting in, and is now busily ignoring the restrictions that places on his spending and fund raising. He is breaking the law, willfully and repeatedly, and the bullshit media system is winking and nodding like the brain dead bobble head that it is.

11 of the 15 was from big money donars, 4 from online donations from real people. He can't raise shit.

[Thepricebreaker]

7. the RNC and Bush will get him his funds..

Bush may have a poor approval rating but he is an amazing fund raiser.

[Thepricebreaker]

6. He SAID he would.. that isnt a binding thing.....

[Warren Stupidity]

9. He can opt out for the GE but he was in for the primaries

and he willfully broke the regulations after opting in.

[WayneF]

8. Yes, I think it may go away, just like Hagee/Parsely bonanza

www.rejectmccain.com
TPM says it well:

Here’s the back story. As of December, McCain was still enrolled in the public financing system, but had yet to actually receive any public matching funds. The Federal Election Commission had certified that the campaign would be receiving $5.8 million in public funds. But they wouldn’t get that money for a couple more months. In need of even more cash beyond the $3 million loan he’d already secured from a Maryland bank (he’d taken out a life insurance policy as collateral), the McCain campaign was stuck in a bind. They needed more money, but the bank needed collateral.

The promise of those public matching funds (to the tune of more than $5 million) was the only collateral the campaign could offer. But there was a problem with that. Using that promised money as collateral would have bound McCain to the public financing system, according to FEC rules. And the McCain camp wanted to avoid that, because the system limits campaigns to spending $54 million in the primary (through August). That would mean McCain would get seriously outspent by the Democratic nominee through the summer. (McCain has separately pledged to enroll in the system for the general election; that would give him $85 million in taxpayer funds for use after the party convention through Election Day but bar other contributions.)

So here’s what the McCain campaign did. They struck a deal with the bank that simultaneously allowed his campaign to secure public funds if necessary, but did not compel his campaign to stay in the public system if fundraising went well (i.e. if he won the nomination). As McCain’s lawyer told the Post, “We very carefully did not do that.”

He was not promising to remain in the system — he was promising to drop out of the system, and then opt back in if things went poorly. In that event, the $5.8 million would still be waiting for him. And he’d just hang around to collect it, even if he’d gotten drubbed in New Hampshire and the following states..”