I wonder if John McCain ever tosses and turns at night wondering about the giant hole in the fundraising laws that allows a wealthy candidate like Mitt Romney to fund any shortfalls in his campaign treasury. That hole is just one problem with the kiind of campaign finance reform Sen. McCain himself successfully promoted.
All the candidates, even Romney, are straining hard at this point to mount fund-raising efforts. Now that the competition is narrowing, it probably is becoming easier, but throwing fundraisers together in a few days leaves a lot of potential donors--and their money--for later visits. If there is still a race going into Tsunami Tuesday, February 5, I don't see how McCain can suddenly raise the cash he needs. In the old days, a promising candidate could get a big donor to float a loan for him that would be covered later. No more!
Nonetheless, it is notable that McCain raised a million dollars in New York last night and was back in Florida today trying to raise some more. All will go to the TV purchases he needs to make his presence known in this key state. Giuliani, though energetic and charming on the stump, apparently is falling behind in the polls, while McCain and Romney are neck and neck, with McCain considered a bit ahead. But Giuliani and Romney both have over $1 million in TV ads airing and McCain must at least compete with that. (Sen. McCain says he thinks Romney has $1.3 million in TV ads and that Giuliani has $1.7 million.) Huckabee, meanwhile, has pretty much left the state and is trying to pull out some victories in Southern states in the big February 5 primary and caucus blow-out.
I heard Sen. McCain speak in person today (The Palm Beach Post lists where the campaigners are appearing each day) and he seems like a political pugilist who is completely focused on tomorrow's debate at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Romney is his real rival, that's plain. It is also plain to me that McCain is adjusting his message to attract more diversity of conservative support. His earlier emphasis on government cost-cutting is still there, but it now follows his advocacy of retaining the Bush tax cuts that are set to expire in 2010, a position he was taking almost as an afterthought a few months ago. In Florida he also is trying hard to show concern, finally, for the people worried about disaster insurance in an area with vivid hurricane memories. McCain has a plan to link the Southeast U.S. region together in a private insurance pool, and also to reform FEMA. But Giuliani explicitly backs a proposal for a huge public Catastrophe Fund, and Mitt Romney--who showed in Michigan that he is willing to promise $20 billion in government programs to battle unemployment in Michigan alone--seems up to matching the Giuliani bid.
The Romney argument worked with anxious voters in Michigan. Will it work in Florida? I don't know. One of the growing list of remarkable things about this year's extraordinarily long primary election season is that the winning candidates are not always the best funded or the best organized. And then, again, sometimes they are!