John McCain, back when he was a champion of campaign-finance reform, fought for a measure requiring presidential candidates to pay the actual cost of flying on corporate jets. Around the same time, McCain also vowed not to rely on his wife’s considerable personal wealth to finance his presidential campaign.
It looks like both of those commitments, like far too many of McCain’s promises, are a little shaky.
[O]ver a seven-month period beginning last summer, Mr. McCain’s cash-short campaign gave itself an advantage by using a corporate jet owned by a company headed by his wife, Cindy McCain, according to public records. For five of those months, the plane was used almost exclusively for campaign-related purposes, those records show.
Mr. McCain’s campaign paid a total of $241,149 for the use of that plane from last August through February, records show. That amount is approximately the cost of chartering a similar jet for a month or two, according to industry estimates.
The senator was able to fly so inexpensively because the law specifically exempts aircraft owned by a candidate or his family or by a privately held company they control. The Federal Election Commission adopted rules in December to close the loophole — rules that would have required substantial payments by candidates using family-owned planes — but the agency soon lost the requisite number of commissioners needed to complete the rule making.
Because that exemption remains, Mr. McCain’s campaign was able to use his wife’s corporate plane like a charter jet while paying first-class rates, several campaign finance experts said. Several of those experts, however, added that his campaign’s actions, while keeping with the letter of law, did not reflect its spirit.
Well, no, of course not. As Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, explained, “This amounts to a subsidy for his campaign, which is notable given how badly they were struggling last year.”
Quite right. When McCain’s campaign began to struggle financially, it began using his wife’s corporate jet at a discounted rate. It’s not illegal, but it does contradict two of McCain’s pledges to voters.
Last summer, just before starting to use his wife’s plane, Mr. McCain was quoted in a newspaper report as saying that he did not plan to tap her substantial wealth to keep his bid for the Republican presidential nomination going.
“I have never thought about it,” Mr. McCain was quoted by The Arizona Republic as saying at a July appearance. “I would never do such a thing, so I wouldn’t know what the legalities are.”
The McCain campaign turned to using the jet last August, a time when it faced mounting debts and the possibility of financial collapse. It stopped doing so in March, those records indicate.
So, McCain wanted presidential candidates to pay the actual cost of flying on corporate jets, except he didn’t want the rule to apply to his own campaign. He said he “would never” rely on his wife’s considerable assets, but did so anyway when he needed the money.
It’s worth emphasizing that this isn’t illegal. Indeed, if Cindy McCain wants to let John McCain use her jet every day, as much or as little as he wants, there’s nothing necessary untoward about it. It’s just self-financing, which is perfectly legal.
The problem in this instance is three-fold — the two commitments McCain was willing to break, and then the possible end-run around public financing.
Reading the piece, one question that suggests itself is why go through all the roundabout? McCain’s wife can give him as much free air travel as she wants. That’s just self-financing, which lots of candidates do completely legally. John Kerry, remember, took a loan out on his home to pour money into his campaign during its nadir just before Iowa. But remember, this was also around the time that McCain was kinda sorta opting in to the public financing system. So I’d be curious to hear how these two things would have interacted, what the legal repercussions would have been.
I’d just add that when the McCain campaign recently released the senator’s tax returns, it carefully excluded his wife’s income and assets (assets that include her jet). Given this, expect the calls for full disclosure to increase.