McCain to raise half of general election budget *privately*

Leave aside for a moment the fact that John McCain's campaign lied to the media about a loan using public funding as collateral, and leave aside the legality of him withdrawing from the public finance system after having secured that loan. Also, leave aside the fact that John McCain would have had a $9 million spending edge over Obama if Obama took public financing.

Leave those aside for the moment because they aren't the only double-standards John McCain is seeking to enjoy in this public financing debate.

The other big double standard is probably the biggest one of them all: John McCain is portraying himself as an advocate for eliminating private funding from the general election when truth is that about one-half of his general election campaign will be financed by private sources.

I'm not talking about independent outside groups like 527s or PACs -- I'm talking about spending by John McCain and the Republican National Committee, the GOP's presidential election committee.

The New York Times hinted at this when McCain announced his decision to accept public funding:

The McCain campaign has long struggled to raise money, and was out-raised by several of his Republican rivals in the primary and vastly out-raised by Mr. Obama. But in recent months the campaign’s decision to raise money in tandem with the Republican National Committee, which is far richer than its Democratic counterpart, has yielded results.

The McCain campaign hoped that by accepting public financing – which will yield it more $84.1 million – and relying on the deep-pockets of the Republican National Committee, it will be able to stay competitive with Mr. Obama.

So the question is, how much private funding will be funneled into the McCain campaign by through his joint fundraising efforts with the Republican Party?

Inspired by debrazza, a frequent commenter on this blog, I pulled together the following datapoints which demonstrate the extent to which John McCain's campaign will be privately funded.

Public funding sources and limits:

• Public funding: $84.1 million

Private funding sources and limits:

(See FEC's Campaign Guide [.pdf] for definitions of each category.)

• Coordinated expenditures with RNC: $19.1 million
• Independent expenditures by RNC: unlimited (RNC spent $17.9 million in 2004)
• GOTV operations by RNC and state parties: unlimited (GOP spent $35.2 million in 2004)
• Signage and literature by state parties: unlimited

Minimum estimate of total campaign spending (from public and private sources), assuming at least 2004 levels for GOTV and independent expenditures:

• $156.3 million ($84.1 million public + $72.2 million private)

Conclusion: At minimum, nearly half of McCain's general election budget will come from private sources.

McCain will have no problem raising the money he needs. The RNC already has $40.6 million cash-on-hand, compared to $4.4 million for the DNC.

On top of the numbers above, John McCain has already raised more than $100 million in private funds for his 2008 campaign. Consequently, by the time November rolls around, it is nearly certain that 75% of John McCain's expenditures will have been raised from private sources.

So the bottom-line is that while John McCain rips Barack Obama for deciding to fund his campaign from private sources, the reality is that John McCain himself is planning on relying on private funds to run his own campaign.

Yet we hear nary a word of this in the press, which instead focuses on Barack Obama's change of position on using public financing for the general election. I'm not saying that the media shouldn't report his switch as a reversal; it was.

St. John McCain is claiming moral purity on this issue, but unless he affirmatively states that he will not use the private financing vehicles that are his disposal, his attacks ring hollow and reek of hypocrisy.

Original here