McCAIN CAMP RESPONDS TO FEC ON DISPUTED LOAN

Senator McCain’s campaign has responded to a request by the Federal Election Commission for more information about a loan it took out that is complicating its efforts to withdraw from the public financing system for the Republican primary. The campaign sent the FEC a letter from Fidelity and Trust Bank asserting that Mr. McCain did not use the promise of federal matching funds as collateral for a $4 million line of credit it secured last year. Using federal money as collateral would prohibit Mr. McCain from withdrawing from the program, which in turn would force him to virtually cease all campaign spending for the next six months. The panel can’t rule on the McCain case because it has four vacancies and lacks a quorum. The Democratic National Committee has filed a complaint over the matter with the commission, and advisers to Mr. McCain yesterday accused the DNC of trying to distract attention from Senator Obama’s efforts to back away from a pledge to accept public financing in the general election. “We’re not dealing with a vulnerability of law and ethics,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, told reporters.

INDICTED EDWARDS DONOR TOLD TO PULL AD WITH NAZI REFERENCE

A Michigan lawyer under federal indictment for making illegal donations to the 2004 presidential bid of John Edwards, Geoffrey Fieger, will be ordered to stop airing a television advertisement comparing the Bush administration to the Nazis, a judge said Monday. After reciting Father Martin Niemöller’s quote which begins, “First, they came for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist,” the ad shows pictures of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, a former attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, and a former political adviser to Mr. Bush, Karl Rove, as Mr. Fieger declares, “When they came for the lawyers, your defenders, they were really coming after you.”

According to the Detroit Free Press, Judge Paul Borman called the ad “totally off the wall” and indicated he agreed with prosecutors that it was an improper attempt to taint the jury pool. Mr. Fieger’s lawyers claim he is exercising his First Amendment right to put public pressure on the Justice Department to drop the case.

DODD ENDORSES OBAMA, SAYS HE’S ‘READY’

Senator Dodd of Connecticut threw his support to Senator Obama yesterday, becoming the first former Democratic presidential hopeful to choose between Mr. Obama and Senator Clinton.

Appearing with Mr. Obama in Ohio, Mr. Dodd acknowledged that he was skeptical of him at first but that after seeing him “poked and prodded” for months, he had concluded, “He is ready to be president.” The longtime senator also warned both candidates against a “divisive” end to the primary campaign that could threaten the party’s hopes in November.

APPEALS COURT TO HEAR CASE OVER FLORIDA DELEGATES

A federal appeals court has set a hearing next month on a legal challenge to the Democratic National Committee’s decision not to recognize the results of the Sunshine State’s January 29 presidential primary.

On March 17, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is scheduled to convene in Atlanta to take up a lawsuit brought by a Tampa political consultant, Victor DiMaio, who charges that his constitutional rights were violated by the decision to strip the state of its Democratic delegates for holding the primary before the time frame authorized by the national party.

A federal judge in Tampa threw the case out last year, citing Supreme Court rulings that parties have wide authority over the nomination process. “I think we’re ripe for a new decision here,” Mr. DiMaio said. Senator Clinton who defeated Senator Obama in Florida, 49% to 33%, has also vowed to see the state’s delegates seated.