McCain the Reformer vs. McCain the Candidate

What does it say when John McCain — the poster child for campaign finance reform in the Senate and a one-time supporter of public financing for campaigns — announces he doesn't want the public's money for the primaries?

McCain, who is on his way to becoming the Republican presidential nominee, made his intent known in letters last week to the Federal Election Commission and the Treasury Department. The Arizona senator said that even though he is eligible, he chooses not to use public money for the G.O.P. primary race.

"I will make no further requests for matching-fund payment certifications and will not accept any matching-fund payments," McCain's letter to the F.E.C. says.

McCain asked the F.E.C. if he could participate in the system last summer, when his campaign was on weak legs and his coffers were dry. In December, the agency approved him to receive about $5.8 million. If he accepted it, he would have to limit primary spending to about $50 million.

But after McCain's initial primary wins last month, his fundraising has taken off. He raised more than $7 million last month alone, his campaign reported.

By opting out of the system for the primaries, candidates can spend as much money as they raise, with no federal limits. Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton long ago opted not to use public primary money.

The presidential candidates raised a combined total of nearly $552 million in 2007 for the 2008 primaries, according to year-end reports filed with the FEC on Jan. 31 and analyzed by the Campaign Finance Institute. This more than doubles the previous off-year record of $273 million that the 2004 candidates raised in 2003.

And with candidates like Obama now raising about $1 million a day, McCain is going to need to raise as much as possible to keep a Republican message before the public during a time when Democrats are fighting each other and commanding attention.

"Taking the funding essentially marks you as a loser," says former F.E.C. chairman Brad Smith, a Republican.

Smith explained that accepting public money comes with a big caveat in it sets limits on how much and where you can spend the cash.

"It just sort of reinforces that notion that if you want to be competitive in the primaries, you can't afford to take the public money," Smith said.

What happens when the primaries end and the two parties select their nominees is another matter, at least for now.

McCain and Obama have agreed that if they are the Republican and Democratic nominees, they will agree to accept the roughly $85 million in public funds available to each candidates. The system is financed through the $3 check-off on individual income tax returns.

But there's a hitch: both of the men said they'd stick with the public financing approach if their opponent did the same. Clinton said when she announced her candidacy more than a year ago that she was accepting contributions for both her primary and possibly general election campaigns, effectively signaling that she intended to skip the public financing process completely.

"There is a great appeal to public financing in the general and that's why every major party since Watergate has financed in the general" election, says Kenneth Gross, a campaign finance lawyer who advises Democratic candidates and is a former F.E.C. general counsel.

"No candidate is going to unilaterally disarm and go for public financing," Gross adds, "but certainly if both nominees agree, I think it would be a hard thing to turn down ... they would love to be relieved of the arduous undertaking of raising money."

Smith agrees that in an Obama-McCain matchup, chances are they will use the public system, since "it would fit their image." He also says voters don't care much whether public money is used or not.

"They don't think these folks are more corrupt or less corrupt because of their participation in the system," Smith adds.

Voters also may not be all that impressed with how much money candidates can raise, but they are concerned about where that money came from. If voters don't like the price they are paying for prescription drugs, for example, they won't support a candidate who gets lots of money from drug companies.

"The average voter factors in money in this way: They consider where they candidates have gotten their money and then they decide how they feel about that," says Massie Ritsch, a spokesman at the Center for Responsive Politics.

by Liza Porteus Viana