He can't meet his fundraising goals -- and is being beaten by Mitt Romney in the amount raised.

Sen. John McCain said his presidential campaign would not meet its fundraising goals this quarter, and his campaign advisers acknowledged that ex-MA Gov. Mitt Romney may wind up raising more.

"We're going to pay a price for it because we got a late start," McCain told reporters in New Hampshire. "We're not going to meet the goals we had." He later said he did not know whether Romney would outpace him, but his advisers did not downplay that possibility. They also did not rule out finishing first.

McCain contends that his exploratory committee's opening in December and the rush of the busy holiday season did not allow his campaign to begin fundraising in earnest until January. But once that month began, owing in part to a busy Senate schedule, McCain attended only two fundraisers and only two in February. There are twenty scheduled for all of this month, and another twenty in April.

While the numbers that come out in July are a better indicator of the strength of a campaign, one would have to think that the failure of one of America's most visible and best known GOP politicians to meet his goal in this area constitutes a major failure.

But then again, maybe lots of Republicans are simply practicing our own version of "campaing finance reform" -- by not giving money to a candidate with a record clearly hostile to the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Posted by: Greg at 01:46 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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