According to the latest Federal Election Commission report, John McCain has now spent $58.4 million dollars. McCain applied for public financing, and according to FEC chairman David Mason (in a letter to McCain), he can't withdraw without permission of the FEC. So he is now legally in violation of campaign finance law.
But as Media Matters points out, you'd never know it from reading AP writer Jim Kuhnhenn:
A March 21 Associated Press article reported that Sen. John McCain "has now spent $58.4 million in his primary bid, surpassing the $50 million limit he would have faced if he participated in the public financing system he had been certified to join." The article, by staff writer Jim Kuhnhenn, continued: "McCain has decided not to accept the public matching funds, but the FEC [Federal Election Commission] wants him to assure regulators that he did not use the promise of public money as collateral for the loan." Kuhnhenn also reported that "[t]he Democratic National Committee [DNC] has filed a complaint with the FEC arguing McCain cannot withdraw from the public finance system without FEC approval." In fact, as Kuhnhenn himself has noted in previous articles, in addition to the DNC, FEC Chairman David Mason has also asserted that McCain cannot legally withdraw from the public finance system without such approval.
The Wall Street Journal article makes the same convenient omission.
Barbecue buddies forever, eh?
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Thanks for posting on this, Jane. This is obscene.
a repug who is a criminal…uh oh pearl clutching time
Jane, Great Post!!! Now can we count on MSM to report this?
Wow, another criminal republican. I’m really shocked. NOT.
Will the MSM ever wake up?
Does this just go in an “oops!” file?
Can’t expect them to remember things that their employment depends on them forgetting.
McCain is a crook and a benighted individual…
Right alongside his ’senior moment’ and ’slip’ on Iran and AQI…!
It’s yet another example of the risk-averse corporate media with a “he said, she said” article that refuses to take a stand.
I think this is one reason why openly partisan blogs and websites have been so popular.
I’m shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
Fuck ‘im.
i actually go for just plain stupid
Just read article aloud to mr, who replied by calling McCain ‘a muppet’ come to find out, he didn’t mean jim henson’s muppets.
None of these fuckers, I repeat NONE, are stupid. They know they can get away with it so who is stupid?
benighted
is that like beknighted
Exactly. That’s why it’s insane for Pelosi to say impeachment is off the table. Allowing bush to get away with murder just sets the table. The rest of them understand they can do what they want without fear of consequence.
well, i think their advisers are smart and mean … all their wingmen are little cheneys and roves …they let goofy friendly idiots stand point for the real ones
Arrest, prosecute, imprison!
I think it means the MSM will help him keep this in the dark. ;^)
Yup, just another senior moment. Nothing to see here folks. Now move along.
McCain is not stupid, but he is ignorant…big difference…he’s also old, too old to be prez. You know gang, when I was a teenager in London, before I came to the US at 14, my mom used to tell me: Just state the obvious, son. I’ve been doing that ever since…McCain is ignorant and too old to be prez. He’s also not in the best of health…
mr wobbs throws in: calculating
…in case you’re all wondering what I was doing in London when I was a teenager: I was born there..of Nigerian parents…whence my cosmopolitan bent…*g*
John McCain a straightshooter no matter his history with the Keating 5 and lobbyists.
John McCain a maverick no matter how he toadies up to Bush and conservatives.
John McCain is a foreign policy expert no matter not knowing the difference between al Qaeda and Iran.
John McCain is a campaign reformer no matter how much he plays games with campaign finance laws.
Honestly I don’t see what the problem is, at least, if I get my news from the mainstream media.
The Special Oops File.
they probably have a lot of those still left from the Reagan years
You cosmopolitan, you
I’ll second that.
Move along folks, nothing to see here
I looked at the article, and cannot figure out how to post a rebuttal or to contact the writer and
abusegently correct him.What could be the results of enforcement of this? And who is the responsible Party?
John McCain is the kindest, warmest, most wonderful human being we have ever met.
-The Media
margot at 6 says-”Does this just go in an “oops!” file?”
’poops’ file, cuz it smells.
Has the murdoch buy out of the WSJ happened yet?
Look: McCain is too old, doesn’t know jack shit about the economy, doesn’t know the difference between Shites and Sunnis, knows about the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong because he was their, er, guest for a while, and yet, polls say he’s ahead of both Obama and Hillary in general. Go figure…Will McCain really be our next prez? Really? Does anyone truly believe that? Or are people just being politically correct?
Is it not true that if McCain does not accept public financing then he is not subject to the public financing rules?
“Will McCain really be our next prez? Really? Does anyone truly believe that?”
__________
That is my fear. Any country that could select Bu’ush — twice — is one easily capable of going for the hat trick.
well, i’m down here in the south, but I’d say right now, I’d put my money on McCain, but thankfully, the DEMS will overrun the senate and the house so he won’t be able to do much
and he makes good baby back ribs
harry shearer just said that mccain mis-speaking ”maybe it’ll become a strategy”
he’s imitating him right now on his radio show…….golly, he’s funny.
the skit of the night-
mccain is speaking, tripping over himself, and lieberman keeps whispering key words in the background…….correcting him……and mccain keeps mispronouncing words……..lieberman correcting and feeding him lines.
both things are like bush does when he’s talking, like he has an earpiece.
harry shearer show, it’s worth listening to.
i think the msm isn’t payin attention to mccain breaking the law, cuz they EXPECT republicans to break the law.
no big deal /s
Like Bush, McCain is a “rules don’t apply to me” republican.
and HE’s A REAL AMERICAN WAR HERO!
true dat
More accurately, the Repu’ublicist position is that “the rules are what we say they are.”
shearer’s ’character’ announcer just said ”this has been a special broadcast from senator mccain’s ’mis-speaking tour’”……..ROFLWTS………..
Perris and I don’t believe the polls we think the GOP is laying the groundwork to steal a third election.
After all Dem Presidential Primary turnout for our second place finisher Hilary or Obama was higher than what McCain got in how many red states?
Or put another way McCain’s funding dropped after he won the nomination.
The GOP is the party of big money but McCain is in trouble because he went on the publicly financed campaign system?
We need to turn the heat up on the FEC. This is just ridiculous.
How often have we held or won seats in the House ans Senate but lost the presidency?
Yep. Rupert is about to put his imprint on the paper.
Introduce a page 3 girl and give Dennis Miller and Ted Nugent weekly columns for starters.
-G
i’m not sure …actually
IIRC, the FEC is crippled at the moment. Due to the number of vacancies, no majority exists, so they are not able to do their job. I don’t think folks like the Mukasey DOJ will be helping out.
gstockman at 36 says-”
Is it not true that if McCain does not accept public financing then he is not subject to the public financing rules?”
afaik—not if he used the agreeement as collaterol for loans…….then he broke the law by backing out.
kinda like fraud.
I wonder if Rupert will make the WallStreetJournal report Happy Business News like the Fox Business Channel does. The only reason a lot of people read the Journal is accurate business news.
Rupert however made his name with biased spin and sleaze which is good for tv but bad for real news viewers as opposed to 30%ers looking to renew their 30 minute “Hate”.
To the MSM, anything’s OK if you’re a Republican.
It’s not that the MSM isn’t noticing, it’s that they are doing the job they are being paid to do - be the propaganda mouthpiece of the Republican party.
massacio—which article?
Oh I don’t know either but I just think that if the GOP is going to steal the White House it would be more believable to steal some House and Senate seats too.
Otherwise how do you explain McCain wining but the GOP losing in states where the Dems will outspend the GOP by allot for the first time in my lifetime?
all politics is local …
Maybe it’s just me, but I think this is going to be awfully hard for him to spin when the general election rolls around. You don’t get much more hypocritical than this.
i think they do have a vote the son of guns out on the congressional level, but they’ll go with their national security hearts for prez and I think they like the idea of not giving one party everything… but you can come back at me in 6 months and say i was wrong, if i am
Don’t forget to digg criminal McCain here.
As far as I am concerned, the WSJ had a commodity in their name(business, not their predictable and odious opinion page).
Their name is now mud.
Now comes the Hannitizing.
-G
too wonky for the average voter … I always ask my students about some story that’s got me all heated, I bit if I ask them this out of the 600 lil darlin’s they’ve all got something to say about Jeremiah Wright, but not ONE will be able to come up with this one
As Phoenix Woman pointed out yesterday concerning the newsreaders, “journalists”, pundits and bloviators of the traditional MSM
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair
Suppose McCain is found to be wrong on this issue what happens a fine? Does he have to give some money back? Maybe he has to shut his campaign down until the presidential campaign begins?
But aside from the laugh factor McCain’s campaign is toast. I am not sure that we can hurt him anymore.
I mean Bush/McCain are already at 30% so maybe we can get that down another 5% with a good campaign. Maybe the war and gas prices can take another 5%.
But outside of another Katrina hitting a redstate we can’t expect to shake the 30%ers much.
it’s about the electoral college and which states play which direction, so first you can assume most of the middle and the south go for mcCain period
it’s down to those same old swing states —and we’re irritating the granddady of them right now … FLORIDA
I don’t think so. My sense is that what most low-information voters know about John McCain is that: (1) He’s really old. (2) He was a POW in Viet Nam. (3) His signature issue is campaign finance reform.
You don’t have to be very wonky to see the hypocrisy here.
no one every gets really excited about campaign financing, except those conservative voters that hate MCcain over his collaboration with Feinstein..I mean I’ve got a class of aroudn 200 tomorrow, I’ll ask them and see who heard the story and report back, my guess is maybe 1 or 2 from the polysci department,
Michigan’s a swing state too. The last few years it hasn’t been so dramatic as ohio and florida were, but it’s got enough population and size to really be troublesome.Much less the sheer quirkiness of the voters.
Really you think people will still vote GOP for President because of security? I don’t doubt you your information just means that we have to harp on Bush losing the war in Iraq more.
We won WW2 in less time, I wonder if in inflation adjusted dollars the Iraq war is more expensive than WW2.
Dang I always think of good questions for the last thread later.
I don’t think it’s a very big story right now. But I think that we’re going to be able to beat it over his head when the general election comes around.
McCain went to Michigan and told the autoworkers that they needed to learn how to do other jobs. He doesn’t have a chance in hell of taking that state.
I think that we will be pleasantly surprised this year come November (no, Mississippi is not included..sadly) the economy is fucked up and when you start messing with a person’s paper, they get a little cranky
well, I think they still think president, command in chief, tough guy abroad … and the iraq wars been sorta on the back pages so they’re not so irritated at that as much as they were…hopefully, repubs have time to bone MCBane up on the ECON …
The Midwest hates high gas prices. Security has been played out the economy and the failure at war and healthcare are bigger now.
Bush hopes another war terror attack will make him and the GOP popular again, but after all this effort will people blame him for an another attack happening?
They sure will think “Wag the Dog” about another war.
McCain is going to have to learn another job, too. But not the one of presidenting.
and we’ll be spent in fighting, that’s their dream scenario
That’s when the Maverick told the residents of Michigan that the jobs were gone and they weren’t coming back. That was his “let them eat cake” moment.
and i’m really afraid of another trumped up attack, we’ve already seen the OBL videos and threats again
union folks prolly wouldn’t vote for him anyway, he’s probably got his eyes on other places
he needs retire
how many more McCrazy gaffs?
i’ve just registered at digg and done my first digg.
im making Coq au Vin,never made it before…Alton Brown …
I’d hit McCain hard on his flip flop on Bush’s tax cuts, by repeatedly playing McCain’s own original attack on Bush. It’s a twofer. It shows his flip flop and we get a bonus attack on Bush.
600 students? what are you teaching?
We get a high number people out to vote, and make it even more of a challenge for them to steal the election.
We have the 50 state strategy in place where we have democrats in place in many areas where they were none before. Every vote for a democrat takes two votes for a republican to beat it.
We have 28 sitting democratic govenors, including Ohio and PA, two key swing states, which will make the prospect of stealing in those state harder.
I’m not saying it’s going to be a cake walk, I think we have a better position now than the last 2 elections.
Principles of Macroeconomics
That or another war are the only gamechangers Bush and the GOP have they can’t win the war in Iraq, they can’t lower gas prices.
They are trying their best to save the economy but with the Bear Stearns collapse all the economic bombs I thought that the GOP was saving for a Democratic President are prematurely exploding.
If the economy does get worse history will point to the Bear Stearns failure as the start of it all because its to big to ignore. Bush’s legacy is wrote.
i think we need to hammer on its the economy stupid for awhile … that’s mcBane’s real weakness … but i’m sure that cheney is over there in the middle east arranging for lower oil prices and a few terrorism alerts
I was thinking more like Cheney was there arranging for a few terror attacks. Perhaps discussing the most opportune time.
like macrame, but use money instead of string?
I agree 100% with you. People vote their pocketbooks as the saying goes. Fear from terror isn’t going to work this time around I believe.
more like alchemy with green and red ink
What percentage of Americans believe that 911 was an inside job?
aah, the fine art of christmas alchemy.
*raises hand*
seconds
Lamb is interviewing Phil about “Body of War” on C-Span 1…
I’ve seen nothing to indicate that level of competance. All the same, I have a hard time with the official version.
okay, i’m off to watch John Adams … keep conspiring!
just biz between 2 LONGTIME partners,never mention this on Eschaton ,by the by all the a-listers go ballistic
If Cheney orchestrates another “attack” how many people will believe it was done by OBL or Al Qaeda?
You’re a little late. :) It’s almost over, but it will re-air later this evening. Very good show.
5, 6 tops.
Heh, I was busy with the Easter ham and mashed potatoes…! ;-)
millenery man at 88==
in my area, athen, ohio, se ohio, is a dem area, but many ron paul supporters, and we have a repub state rep……we had many voters who were in a dilemma in the primary, dems wanting to vote repub to vote for ron paul but wanted to vote in hotly contested dem races…….we had repubs who wanted to vote for dems in local races, and didn’t want to vote for repub presidential primary.
hot topic was, is it more important to vote for national or local candidates? debate went on and on for weeks here on the little local call-in show. whether to vote repub or dem ballot.
most repubs don’t like any of the repub pres candidates. many have switched over and vow they will not vote for mccain……i’ve been listening to this station for years, and avowed republicans are going to vote dem.
dem gov strickland is well liked, polling high in repub quarters, even though he’s pissed them off a few times, they still like him, cuz he’s honest about how and what and why when he does stuff. they respect him.
jennifer bruner, who replaced blackwell, and is trying to straighten out voting problems, although a republican, is well liked also, she’s doing a good job i think, although i don’t agree with everything she’s trying to do, she keeps things open for debate and that is what i like about her.
since strickland, our house and senate are actually working together, although a few assholes are trying to put be a broken cog in the machine. they’re outnumbered.
so, i can’t see ohio going for mccain…….
but in sw ohio, boehner country, that’s another story.
You are always cookin’.
just tell me how they got the video of the so called culprits 2 days after(at an atm) i believe
i made coq au vin in the slow cooker and it aint baqd,for a fist time try…a bit of sugear (not in the recipe) made the difference