A Broken FEC: McCain's Bane and Blessing

Sen. John McCain's problems with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) haven't gone away.

Yesterday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a complaint against McCain for alledgedly violating campaign finance rules by using the potential of public matching funds as collateral for a loan to keep his campaign afloat, but now trying to withdraw from the spending limits attached to those funds. The FEC last week issued a statement that McCain cannot withdraw his request for matching funds because the Commission, which cannot achieve quorum because 4 of the 6 seats are vacant due to an appointments battle between President Bush and the Senate, cannot issue a ruling on his request. Likewise, they cannot issue any rulings on the DNC's complaint against McCain for the same reasons. For more background on this check out my earlier post: Will Campaign Finance Rules derail the Straight Talk Express?

Ultimately, the crux of this issue is the spending limits. If McCain is bound to those limits (as the DNC complaint is seeking to ensure) then his campaign is on the verge of breaching them. Thus, McCain's campaign has a hard choice before them: stop spending money and go dark until the Republican Convention in September, or break the rules, defy the commission and risk a fine and potential imprisonment of campaign officials (although imprisonment is an unlikely outcome). For more on this, check out Daniel Nashaw's article in The Guardian.

So, the broken FEC is McCain's bane and blessing. Without a quorum, they cannot rule on his request to withdraw from the matching funds program creating an ongoing PR problem for him, but it's a blessing because the FEC cannot rule on the DNC's complaint or McCain's likely breach of the spending limits, either. Whatever happens, McCain seems to be abandoning issues central to his political and personal image (integrity and campaign finance) for political expediency. This isn't the first time McCain has sacrificed his integrity and flip-flopped (immigration). Does anyone expect it to be the last?