John McCain is having a bad week and half. First the Iseman flair up, then people started looking at the more substantive issue of that article: the anti-lobbyist being surrounded by lobbyists (including his campaign manager doing his lobbying business from his tour bus). There was also an major concerning McCain and his campaign financing. That’s right, John McCain, of the McCain-Feingold act that tries to limit campaign spending, is caught in a situation that he does not want to be in.
For the whole scoop check out this article and this one and this one. The long and short of it is that last year McCain opted into a public financing program that loaned him $5.8 million when he was short on cash for his campaign. As a result, there was a cap on the total amount of money McCain was allowed to spend this season, $54 million. Apparently McCain is rapidly approaching that number and wants to opt out of the contract he entered into. The Federal Election Commission, however, does not think it should be that easy. It is said that he cannot opt out of the contract without the FEC’s approval. The FEC cannot even let him out if they wanted to because they need four commisioners. They only have two right now, and the process to appoint more is backed up in Congress.
There are a million more details to this very confusing, complicated and intricate story. The articles linked above will provide more details. I just think it’s convenient, now that he’s the Republican presidential nominee, Mr. Campign-Finance-Reform is looking at 5 years in the slammer (which would obviously never happen) for getting himself in this situation. It’s also another great indicator of McCain’s brilliance as a manager, and he could potentialy be the “leader of the free world.”Â