Door left open for an emergency stop on the Straight Talk Express? [View All]

[Coexist]

2/15/08 - John McCain goes on the record stating he will stand by his "year-old pledge made with Senator Barack Obama that each would accept public financing for the general election if the nominee of the opposing party did the same."

2/20/08 - Barack Obama officially replies himself. "In 2007, shortly after I became a candidate for president, I asked the Federal Election Commission to clear any regulatory obstacles to a publicly funded general election in 2008 with real spending limits. The commission did that. But this cannot happen without the agreement of the parties' eventual nominees. As I have said, I will aggressively pursue such an agreement if I am my party's nominee."

This comes with a very shrewd caveat, "I propose a meaningful agreement in good faith that results in real spending limits. The candidates will have to commit to discouraging cheating by their supporters; to refusing fundraising help to outside groups; and to limiting their own parties to legal forms of involvement. And the agreement may have to address the amounts that Senator McCain, the presumptive nominee of his party, will spend for the general election while the Democratic primary contest continues."

2/21/08 - The head of the FEC is not sure that the Straight Talk Express will even be allowed to because "McCain struck a deal with the bank: he promised to only commit to using the system if he lost the primary. If he won, he would opt out of the program, and he'd be more than able to pay the bank back, because the funds would come flowing. McCain's lawyers were evidently very pleased with the canniness of this arrangement."


So - McCain may weasel out? Mr. Straight Talk?

Now - the big question - who can stop McCain from spending more than $54 million?

If the FEC ultimately decided that McCain could not opt out of the system, the consequences would be severe for him. He'd be limited to spending $54 million through August -- meaning that the Democratic nominee would be able to outspend him several times over.

But there's a major catch, of course. The FEC can't take any official action, because it's still shut down over the deadlock in the Senate. The FEC needs four commissioners to act; it currently only has two.

So all the FEC can do for now is send inquiries. But if by some miracle the impasse in the Senate were broken, it could mean trouble for McCain.

Interesting, no?