You folks read here, so you’ve already heard that the maverick Senator who’s built his career on the torture he was subjected to by the Viet Cong voted for torture this past week.

What you maybe haven’t heard about is his flipflop on his signature maverick issue, campaign finance.

Presidential candidate John McCain said on Monday he has rejected public funding and its accompanying spending limits as he seeks to wrap up the Republican presidential nomination.

The Arizona senator asked for public funds last summer after his campaign nearly foundered, but said on Monday he does not need taxpayer money as he seeks to secure the party’s nomination for the November election.

"That was my thinking, we didn’t need to," McCain said after a rally in Virginia, which along with Maryland and the District of Columbia holds primary elections on Tuesday.

The decision will allow McCain to ignore the $54 million spending limit he would have had to observe had he taken public funds, allowing him to train his sights on his eventual Democratic opponent.

McCain has raised at least $53 million so far, an amount dwarfed by Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, each of whom has raised at least $130 million.

The Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group, estimates each nominee will need to raise at least $500 million to compete in the most expensive election ever.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said fund-raising has picked up steadily in 2008. "We’re really happy with how much we’re raising right now. It’s plenty to do the things we want to do," Davis said on the campaign plane on Friday.

McCain is the author of a prominent law that limits money in politics, angering some conservatives in his party who regard the law as a violation of free speech rights.

which the Senator is spinning by attacking the man who he assumes will be the candidate for the Democrats for not accepting the limits he won’t accept himself

Republican John McCain admonished Democrat Barack Obama for hedging on whether he would accept public funding as promised if he wins his party’s nomination or use his prolific fundraising operation.

"I made the commitment to the American people that if I were the nominee of my party, I would accept public financing," McCain said Friday in Oshkosh, Wis. "I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well. This is all about a commitment that we made to the American people.

"I am going to keep my commitment," he said. "The American people have every reason to expect him to keep his commitment."

He seems testy about the Obama narrative he didn’t game for

John McCain’s first broadside against Barack Obama, as a bearer of only "rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas," was grounded in a familiar critique: the idealist driven by ego and elevated by media coverage into a messenger for a purer brand of politics.

In his first presidential race eight years ago, opponents pinned that caricature on McCain. This week, he used it on Obama.

"He has run entirely on his persona being different. It’s important that we puncture that myth," Mark Salter, McCain’s chief speechwriter, said of Obama. "What we’ve got to get people to see is one guy is real and one guy is just a promise."

McCain has repeatedly pledged that he would have a "respectful debate" with Hillary Clinton, who, McCain advisers say, is little different from Obama on matters of policy.

But on Tuesday, McCain’s attention turned toward Obama, who has shown in the primaries a McCain-like ability to reach out to independent voters on the basis of his personal qualities. Without once naming Obama, McCain outlined distinctions with his rival in deeply personal, self-reflective language – dismissing Obama as an immature version of himself.

"When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest ambition, and that all glory was self-glory," McCain said in his speech Tuesday night after winning three mid-Atlantic primaries. "I discovered that nothing is more liberating in life than to fight for a cause that encompasses you, but is not defined by your existence alone."

In 2000, McCain frequently exhorted his audiences to serve "a cause greater than yourself," but downplayed the theme this year. Now, according to adviser Steve Schmidt, McCain intends to revive the theme for the general election. In Tuesday’s speech, he suggested that Obama’s candidacy is propelled by self-interest instead of duty.

"I do not seek the presidency on the presumption that I am blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save my country in its hour of need," McCain said.

And, of course, like all imaginary mavericks in hollywood stories, after surviving the suspicion of the villagers Senator McCain has been rewarded in the end

It wasn’t for naught. As the Senator’s Republican colleague Mr. Armey said when asked why Republican districts were getting record levels of pork with the ascendance of Republicans in Congress: to the victors belong the spoils.

Well, Senator McCain looks like the victor. And he won that greatest of Republican spoils: the endorsement of Tom DeLay

The story about John McCain’s struggle to win over conservative voters has now been told at length on the pages of every major newspaper and magazine in the country. But in North Phoenix on Tuesday night there was a small but significant sign that maybe, just maybe, things might not be as bad for McCain as everyone has opined. Tom DeLay — the former House majority leader who once said that if McCain was the nominee, "I might have to sit this one out" — dropped in between fundraisers. He told Republicans at a meeting in McCain’s home Arizona Legislative District 11 that he’ll support the senator for president if he secures the nomination. And that’s become more of a "when" than an "if."

I wonder who Abramoff is backing?

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