John McCain is lacking in funds because his previous campaign manager overspent, and because his signature campaign finance reform legislation, McCain-Feingold, caps the amount of money an individual may donate to McCain’s campaign. Ironically, campaign finance loopholes allow individuals to self-finance their campaigns, meaning that legislation McCain championed gave an outsize advantage to his rival Mitt Romney, who (as of September 30) spent more than $17 million of his own money on his campaign. Now McCain is experiencing a revival, but his campaign still lacks funds to go up on the air and communicate to the mass voting public. The irony this time is that in addition to drawing a $3 million line of credit, a McCain-sympathetic outside group not covered by campaign finance reform plans to run ads in his favor. In order to win the nomination, the man who has spent more than a decade fighting money in politics and unregulated groups is relying on … an unregulated group. One wishes that McCain finally would wake up to the fact that campaign finance reform is a farce.
