McCain Uses Funding Tricks to Collect Up To $70K Per Person from Donors and Evade Public Financing Controls While Collecting Tax Payer Money for His Campaign

The supposedly clean campaign of John McCain (remember how often they tell us how he co-sponsored campaign finance reform?) has a new scheme to get huge donations from his supporters, legally.

Campaign finance reform, indeed.  But not for the better.

Excerpt WSJ report "McCain Uses Fund to Raise $62.3 Million":

Sen. John McCain raised $62.3 million for his presidential bid in the second quarter in conjunction with the Republican National Committee, according to campaign-finance reports filed Tuesday night.

The campaign gathered most of the money using an unprecedented system that allows it to collect checks as large as $70,000 from an individual by parsing the money between the campaign, the national party and state committees in four states. That fund raised $41.2 million in the three-month period.

Campaigns are limited to a $2,300 contribution per individual, but political parties have much higher limits set by campaign-finance law. The $62.3 million figure doesn't include other monies raised directly by the McCain campaign. 

Sen. McCain formed his "joint fund-raising committee" with the Republican state parties in four swing states: Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico and Wisconsin. When it announced the account, the campaign said it sought out smaller states whose party committees might have trouble raising money independently but were still vital to the Republican's fall campaign.

While President George W. Bush used his fund-raising prowess to raise money for House and Senate candidates in 2004, Sen. McCain seems to be keeping the bulk of the money for himself. About $1 million of the proceeds from the account went to each of the state parties during the quarter, $11 million went to the McCain campaign, and $17 million to the Republican National Committee, which typically focuses exclusively on the presidential race.

Sen. McCain has said he will accept public funding for the general election, meaning his campaign won't be able to spend more than the $84.1 million supplied by taxpayers after the September national party convention. The party can still spend money on his behalf after the convention, however, giving him an extra incentive to raise money for its coffers. The campaign has budgeted a total of $400 million through Election Day.

 This is what Senator Obama was talking about when he refused to accept public funding!  John McCain has a public funding system scam already set up to have the RNC spend $400 million on ads for himself alone!

Yet when Obama refused public funding and it's restrictions so he could raise and spend money honestly the Republicans howled in scammy outrage about what a dirty politician he was and mainstream news followed along to keep their jobs and most liberals who depend on large scale donations also followed along.  I don't know if the liberals were pressured or it's something in the mind set that their 'candidate must appear to be ultra-pure even if we lose another election.

But now it's revealed that McCain's staff started huge campaign financing dirty tricks (already in motion at the time that Mr. Obama turned down public financing). 

That's what every one in McCain's camp knew when they started wailing that Obama was just a normal politician like those before him.  

But the Obama camp knew what they were doing, like they seem to know everything.  I figure that's because they have some damn smart people working for them.

And right now, a normal politician is a refreshing alternative to the dirty pols in McCain's camp.

I notice the article above is only offered in free preview mode, now.  Looking around for more I found another free preview that has even more interesting facts.  I thought as you might the number of 70k donators might be one, but that's not true.

A free preview of  the Journal's "Special McCain-GOP Account Raised $62.3 Million in Quarter " includes:

The average donation, however, was $5,800, far below the $70,100 individual contribution that Sen. McCain's campaign had solicited for the joint fund-raising account, according to a report filed Tuesday at the Federal Election Commission.

More than 30 executives, their spouses and other wealthy donors did give $70,000 or more, with many others approaching that amount.

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