Despite raising a solid $11.65 million in January, McCain remained broke at the end of the month:
According to filings with the Federal Election Commission late Tuesday, McCain had $5.2 million cash on hand at the start of February and $5.5 million in debts, including a loan of nearly $4 million. [...] The campaign's net worth was negative at the end of January. Even worse, the McCain campaign showed a pattern of borrowing before important primaries to try to keep up:
But his report also showed that he entered the month with trepidation, borrowing $950,000 in the first week of January in addition to the $2.9 million he had borrowed in December. The loan improved McCain's cash on hand, allowing him to buy ad time in New Hampshire to fend off an aggressive run by Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.
McCain had also decided to participate in public financing, before abruptly deciding to pull out after his fundraising improved. He was in the position of actually being forced by his bank to pledge to participate in the public financing system if his campaign floundered:
McCain had applied for public financing for the primary but backed out this month. Though he did not secure his loan with the public money, loan records show that the bank, Fidelity Trust & Bank, had insisted that if McCain lost early primaries he would have been required to participate in the federally financed system.
Some principled defender of public financing... It's worth pointing out that McCain's January total, although a personal record, was less than a third of the $36 million Obama raised in the same month, most of it on the internet. |
