McCain Raises $22 Million in Best Money Month of Campaign

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The New York Sun

Senator McCain raised more than $22 million in June, his best fund-raising performance of the year, and ended the month with nearly $27 million cash on hand. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, said yesterday that Mr. McCain and the national Republican Party together entered July with about $95 million in the bank. The Republican National Committee, which has been raising money jointly with Mr. McCain, collected nearly $26 million in June and had nearly $69 million on hand, officials said. The campaign’s fund raising has given Mr. McCain the ability to spend more on television advertising than Senator Obama in key battleground states. Mr. Davis said about half of its income had been spent on television advertising. Mr. Obama has not disclosed his June fund raising. In announcing Mr. McCain’s fund raising, Mr. Davis portrayed the campaign’s financial position as far brighter than ever before. He said the joint RNC-McCain fund raising through direct mail is now exceeding President Bush’s direct mail fund raising in 2004. “We will have significant resources to prosecute a campaign that is very robust,” Mr. Davis said.

MCCAIN DISAVOWS ADVISER’S DIAGNOSIS OF ‘MENTAL RECESSION’

Senator McCain distanced himself from an economic adviser who called America “a nation of whiners” in a “mental recession” as Senator Obama turned the remarks against his rival. “I strongly disagree” with Phil Gramm’s remarks, Mr. McCain told reporters in Belleville, Mich. “Phil Gramm does not speak for me. I speak for me.” The Arizona senator said a person who just lost a job “isn’t suffering from a mental recession.” “America is in great difficulty. And we are experiencing enormous economic challenges as well as others,” Mr. McCain said, seeking to stem the fallout of Mr. Gramm’s comments. Mr. Gramm, a former Texas senator who is a vice chairman of the Swiss bank UBS, made the remarks in an interview with the Washington Times. Mr. Gramm has a doctorate in economics. In Virginia, Mr. Obama seized on the comments as he tried to paint Mr. McCain as out of touch: “America already has one Dr. Phil. We don’t need another one when it comes to the economy.”

MCGAHN NAMED FEC CHAIRMAN

Republican election lawyer Donald McGahn was named chairman of a newly seated Federal Election Commission yesterday, taking the helm of the regulatory agency on his first day on the job.

The FEC convened for the first time in more than six months, a period of inactivity caused by a confirmation standoff in the Senate.

With four of six commissioners new to their jobs, the FEC faces a backlog of work that has accumulated during an election year marked by a hard-fought and financially record-breaking presidential campaign.

Among the top issues the FEC must sort through are a Supreme Court decision invalidating a campaign finance law that governs congressional contests involving wealthy candidates who spend large sums of their own money. It also is behind schedule in writing rules addressing candidate air travel as well as new rules on lobbyist fund-raisers.


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