McCain - skillfully exploiting loopholes in a campaign finance law that he wrote.

[FourScore]

According to FEC reports filed yesterday, John McCain has already raised at $62.5 million in private funds that can be used for his general election campaign -- even though he's already committed to accepting public funding for the general.

Moreover, based on my own analysis, of that $62.5 million, three-quarters -- $46.3 million -- comes from a total of 1,803 wealthy individuals who made five figure contributions averaging $25,664 each.

So not only is John McCain blatantly violating his public financing pledge, but he's doing it in grand style, raising money in increments of up to $70,000 per donor -- more than thirty times the amount a donor can give to Barack Obama's general election campaign.

SNIP

So it is absolutely clear that even as the McCain campaign was telling reporters one thing about their intention to stick by the public financing pledge, they were actually raising tens of millions of dollars from private sources for the general election campaign.

In short, the McCain campaign brazenly lied to the media.

The issue isn't that John McCain will withdraw from the public finance system -- he won't -- but rather that he's devised a way to spend tens if not hundreds of millions in privates funds even as he takes $85 million in taxpayer funds...

McCain, whose campaign is predicting a campaign budget of $400 million through the November 4, is skillfully exploiting loopholes in a campaign finance law that he wrote.

Here's the nuts-and-bolts of the loophole: the money McCain is currently raising through the campaign committees which reported their quarterly results on July 15 is actually being funneled to the Republican National Committee, even though each campaign committee bears McCain's name.

There are two reasons why the money is transferred to the RNC. First, if it were not transferred to the RNC, the money could not be used in the general. Second, by raising the money for the RNC, McCain is able to take advantage of a much higher contribution limits, allowing each donor to contribute $70,000 to his campaign instead of the $2,300 limit that Barack Obama's general election campaign has.

MORE AT:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/16/112835/575/280/543825

[seriousstan]

1. I can't fault someone for exploiting the rules when our candidate opted out after debate.

The rules are the rules. You would be foolish not to play by them, but only by them. Rules and law and words interest me. The precision of the language reveals itself.

[FourScore]

2. That's discussed in the article. n/t

[MarjorieG]

3. It's the media spin, hypocrisy I mind. Two NYT editorials, snarky news stories, only about Obama.