John McCain is pushing Barack Obama to agree to take public financing if the two win their respective parties’ nominations:
OSHKOSH, Wis. — Hammering Senator Barack Obama for a fourth straight day, Senator John McCain said here on Friday that he expects Senator Obama to abide by his pledge use public financing for his general election if Mr. McCain does so as well.
“It was very clear to me that Senator Obama had agreed to having public financing of the general election campaign if I did the same thing,” he said after a town hall meeting here. “I made the commitment to the American people that if I was the nominee of my party, I would go the route of public financing. I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well.”
Asked if he would use public financing even if Mr. Obama did not, he said: “If Senator Obama goes back on his commitment to the American people, then obviously we have to rethink our position. Our whole agreement was we would take public financing if he made that commitment as well. And he signed a piece of paper, I’m told, that made that commitment.”
Mr. Obama did not rule out the possibility of accepting public financing, but declared on Friday, “I’m not the nominee yet.”
“If I am the nominee, I will make sure our people talk to John McCain’s people to find out if we are willing to abide by the same rules and regulations with respect to the general election going forward,” Mr. Obama told reporters at a news conference in Milwaukee. “It would be presumptuous of me to start saying now that I am locking into something when I don’t even know if the other side will agree to it.”
The reason that McCain is making this play is pretty obvious. If Obama is the nominee and he’s not confined by the limits of the public financing system, his fundraising ability will so clearly outmatch McCain’s and the GOP’s that it won’t be funny. We’re talking about a guy who raised more than $ 30 million in one month, compared to a guy who had to take out a loan back in December:
John McCain’s cash-strapped campaign borrowed $1 million from a Bethesda bank two weeks before the New Hampshire primary by pledging to enter the public financing system if his bid for the presidency faltered, newly disclosed records show.
McCain had already taken a $3 million bank loan in November to keep his campaign afloat, and he sought from the same bank $1 million more shortly before this month’s Super Tuesday contests, this time pledging incoming but unprocessed contributions as collateral. He never used the funds of the most recent loan, because his win in the South Carolina primary helped him raise enough money to compete in Florida, his campaign aides said last night.
The loans, revealed yesterday in documents a McCain attorney filed with the Federal Election Commission, offer fresh details about how the Republican senator from Arizona scrambled to secure money as his shoestring campaign navigated a rapid-fire succession of primary contests.
The unorthodox lending terms also raised fresh questions from McCain’s critics about his ability to repeatedly draw money from the Maryland-based Fidelity & Trust Bank. Campaign finance lawyers speculated whether McCain may have inadvertently committed himself to entering the public financing system for the remainder of the primary season by holding out the prospect of taking public matching funds in exchange for the $1 million loan in December.
The answer to that question would appear to be no:
McCain’s victories in the early primaries meant he never had to enter the public financing system. He formally returned his certification to the FEC on Feb. 6.
Nonetheless, McCain would clearly be at a disadvantage if he had to raise money outside the public financing system against Obama, which makes his pleas to Obama now seem incredibly self-serving.
On the other hand, James Joyner argues that the ploy may not accomplish what McCain is aiming for:
[I]f Obama is the nominee, he would enter the general election race as the favorite. It may well be that limiting the amount of money that can be spent — any major party nominee could raise more than $85 million if need be — would be to his advantage. The more the contest depends on free media like debates and the less it depends on television attack ads, the better for Obama, I’d think.
This much is true; Obama has a grassroots support organization in place that McCain will never be able to match. Heck it’s not even clear that McCain will enter the General Election with his party fully united behind him. In that type of situation, it’s McCain who will need to hope that paid media can save his campaign, not Obama.
