McCain Got Loan by Pledging To Seek Federal Funds

[AtomicKitten]

The plot thickens ...

1. McCain's pledge was a prerequisite for a loan he procured to keep on in the campaign.
2. An Obama spokesman discussed public financing last spring, but Obama has always said he would not hamstring the party.
3. Now the Clinton campaign is starting to screech at Obama to accept public financing. I forget, which side is she on again?

CAMPAIGN FINANCE
McCain Got Loan by Pledging to Seek Federal Funds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021503639.html?sid=ST2008021600316

John McCain's cash-strapped campaign borrowed $1 million from a Bethesda bank two weeks before the New Hampshire primary by pledging to enter the public financing system if his bid for the presidency faltered, newly disclosed records show.

McCain had already taken a $3 million bank loan in November to keep his campaign afloat, and he sought from the same bank $1 million more shortly before this month's Super Tuesday contests, this time pledging incoming but unprocessed contributions as collateral. He never used the funds of the most recent loan, because his win in the South Carolina primary helped him raise enough money to compete in Florida, his campaign aides said last night.

The loans, revealed yesterday in documents a McCain attorney filed with the Federal Election Commission, offer fresh details about how the Republican senator from Arizona scrambled to secure money as his shoestring campaign navigated a rapid-fire succession of primary contests.

The unorthodox lending terms also raised fresh questions from McCain's critics about his ability to repeatedly draw money from the Maryland-based Fidelity & Trust Bank. Campaign finance lawyers speculated whether McCain may have inadvertently committed himself to entering the public financing system for the remainder of the primary season by holding out the prospect of taking public matching funds in exchange for the $1 million loan in December.

* snip *

That decision has not stopped McCain from pushing for an agreement with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) that, if the two became their parties' nominees, they would return to public financing for the general election.

Last spring, an Obama spokesman said that the Illinois Democrat would "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election," and McCain told reporters yesterday that Obama should "keep his word to the American people."

* snip *

Obama said in Milwaukee: "If I am the nominee, then I will make sure that our people talk to John McCain's people to find out if we are willing to abide by the same rules and regulations in respect to the general election." But, he added, "it would be presumptuous of me to start saying now that I'm locking myself into something when I don't even know if the other side is going to agree to it, and I'm not the nominee."