McCain Planting Seeds for Presidential Primary

John McCain has been busy spreading the love with his Straight Talk America PAC, hoping that it will return a bumber crop of votes in the ’07 primary season. He’s spread over $225,000.00 so far to state Republican party organizations alone. That’s not including the state and federal candidate contributions, and gifts to other PACs he’s made. McCain has raised almost 4 million with his PAC so far this cycle and has spent almost 3 million of it, much of it on the incessant travel, polling, fundraising, stumping for local candidates, and consultant feeding frenzy that goes into launching a Presidential bid – not to mention the costly purchase of good-will.

Major recipients of McCain’s largess include the Republican parties of many early primary states such as New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina (which stopped the Straight Talk Express cold in 2000). He’s also spending freely in important swing states, indicating that McCain is investing for the long-term, with an eye toward the general election. In Michigan, for instance, McCain announced he was dropping a stunning $120,000.00 on every level of the Michigan Republican party, right down the the state legislative and county levels.

McCain’s open pockets in Michigan could also have something to do with GOP plans in Michigan to move their primary forward to the same day as the South Carolina primary. As a swing state on the earliest primary ‘window’ date, Michigan could considerable influence on the nomination process in ’08. They will be making a decision on moving the primary this summer; perhaps McCain has heard a ‘little bird’ as to the outcome of the state committee’s decision?

McCain’s PAC totals far outstrip the mere 183K that McCain has raised in this non-election year for his candidate committee. But even in an election year, McCain doesn’t have to raise nearly as much as some Senators who are less secure and facing well-financed opposition. In 2004, when McCain was facing re-election, he still raised ‘only’ $3.4 million, well behind the pace at which his PAC is raising this cycle. Compare that to Jon Kyl’s fundraising for this year of $7.6 million, and you can see that not only is Kyl inherently less secure, he is facing a serious (possibly terminal) challenge from Jim Pederson.