Author Topic: More McCain problems?  (Read 436 times)

Bindare_Dundat

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More McCain problems?
« on: February 23, 2008, 05:16:57 PM »
McCain might very well be living out every Presidential candidate’s worst nightmare. A page one story was published yesterday in the New York Times, calling his character into question and to make things worse his campaign’s finances had just been dealt a potentially crippling blow by the FEC.

On top of the lobbyist scandal, which grabbed all of yesterday’s headlines, John McCain’s campaign recently received word from the FEC that they were not going to let McCain out of the federal matching funds program that he entered at a time when his campaign was in financial distress. Two weeks ago McCain notified the FEC that he wanted out of the federal matching funds program, but they informed him that it wouldn’t be so easy because he used the hypothetical matching federal money (which he never actually collected) as collateral in order to qualify for a loan from a Florida bank. If McCain is trapped in the federal program it would mean that he would only be able to spend another $5 million between now and the Republican Convention in September, this would essentially doom his general election campaign before it has even left behind Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.
This problem will not be resolved until four open seats on the FEC board are filled and the board can come to a decision on the issue. If the board ultimately decides to not allow McCain to exit the federal program, the Republican National Committee would have two choices; stick with McCain whose campaign would be doomed for failure or put pressure on McCain to drop out of the race allowing them to turn to an candidate that would not have the same spending restrictions and would be allowed to run the full blown campaign that will be needed to effectively challenge the Democratic nominee.

The news of the ex-staffers allegations along with the news from the FEC are not only significant in and of themselves but are amplified in their relation to the way John McCain has positioned himself as a candidate.

On the lobbying issue McCain, who has attempted to distinguish himself as the enemy of pork barrel spending, is hurt, I believe, simply by having to address this issue and go on defense on an issue that he claims to champion. The seed of doubt, whether or not it is legitimate or will bear fruit, has been planted.

If McCain were to exceed spending limits placed on him by the federal matching funds program, he would be essentially defying an issue (campaign finance reform) on which he pushed legislation that was proudly tied to his name.

On top of these two recent developments McCain recently stated that he, “…always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures.” A statement that is just ambiguous enough to call into question his once admirable stance against torture. Now it is unclear if this statement was an attempt to appease the current administration or the Ann Coulter’s of the world, regardless it jeopardizes his straight talk reputation and gives ammunition to the Democrats in the courting of independents for the general election campaign.

In short, this thing just got very complicated and very interesting. In the next 24 hours it will be important to watch if the New York Times sources step forward and then if they are able to withstand public scrutiny. If they choose not to step forward, I think we see this story fade over the weekend. But even if the lobbyist story fades, McCain’s FEC federal funding problem will not be solved for some time, possibly weeks.  How long will a Republican base that is already apprehensive of McCain stick up for him and wait out his laundry list of problems.