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On the heels of the weekend revelation that Barack Obama’s campaign had raised an astounding $150 million in the month of September, John McCain’s campaign filing shows that he entered the month of October with just $47 million to spend for the duration of the election.

Because he is taking federal funding for his general election campaign, McCain is not raising any more money for his effort, relying instead on the $84 million provided in federal funds. The report shows that McCain’s campaign has spent about $22 million on television ads through the end of September, according to the AP. The RNC can spend up to $19 million in coordinated activities with the campaign and the national party raised about $66 million in September.

In a conference call with reporters today, McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis questioned the transparency with which the Obama campaign has detailed its fund-raising efforts and challenged them to put all their donor information online. Davis acknowledged the impressive fund-raising of Obama but said the McCain campaign has enough resources to compete and win.

While you were out (hopefully) enjoying the first weekend of summer, the campaigns released their latest fundraising reports.

And it turns out that May might be considered a bad fundraising month for Barack Obama – that is, if $23.3 million raised counts as "bad." Compare the May total to Obama's past performance: The presumptive Democratic nominee, whose fundraising success has been unprecedented, raised nearly $32 million in April and more than $40 million in March.

Including May, Obama, who has opted out of public financing for the general election, has now raised $295.5 million. He has $43.1 million on hand as of the end of the month, including $33.3 million for the primary.

John McCain, meanwhile, raised $21.5 million in May, his best fundraising month yet. His total, which nearly matches Obama for the month, marks an improvement on the $18.5 million he raised in April and roughly $15 million he took in in March. McCain has now raised $121.9 million for the campaign and has $31.6 million on hand.

There was more good news in the May reports for McCain: The Republican National Committee, which will be spending aggressively on McCain's behalf in the coming months, took in $24.4 million for the month. The Democratic National Committee, by contrast, took in just $4.8 million. The RNC now has $53.5 million in the bank to the DNCs $3.9 million, and is poised to help at least partially make up McCain's fundraising gap.

Hillary Clinton's campaign, meanwhile, reports a total debt of $22.5 million as of the end of May, a total that includes the $12.2 million personal loan Clinton made to the campaign. Clinton raised $16.3 million for the month but spent $19.2 million, increasing the debt she needs to retire from her now-suspended run for the Democratic nomination.

Barack Obama’s decision to opt out of the public financing system is going to have a lot of immediate and perhaps long-reaching repercussions.

The first impact will be a hit to Obama’s image as a straight-shooter and unique politician. After having earlier vouched for the public system, Obama pledged to stay within it. Having wrapped up the nomination on the back of his unprecedented network of donors, Obama is dumping the system now that he has the ability to raise seemingly endless amounts of money. Not exactly the change Obama wants voters to believe in.

Further down the road, Obama’s decision could very well break the back of the public financing system for future elections, opening the way for more and more money to enter the system. Obama could well raise as much as $600 million for his entire campaign, both primary funds and for the general election. His campaign will become the model for future candidates to hone and refine.

But there is a more tangible, and more important, potential impact of Obama’s decision. If, as the Obama campaign has indicated, he can raise as much as $300 million for the general election campaign, it puts him in a position not only to fiercely compete in those traditional battleground states like Ohio and Florida but to mount serious challenges to states Democrats haven’t been competitive in for years.

Take a look at where the Obama campaign is rolling out its first general election ad for a hint at how broad the map could end up being. Yes, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Pennsylvania are in the mix, as expected. As are Colorado, Virginia and New Mexico, long eyed as battleground states. But the ad is also running in places like Alaska, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina and North Dakota.

If the campaign ends up being fought in places like Georgia, North Carolina and Alaska instead of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio, that’s probably bad news for John McCain. It means he’s playing defense in places he should be able to ignore and spend precious resources there instead of those blue states he would like to pick off.

Democrats have long complained about their candidates’ inability in recent presidential elections to do what Obama’s campaign is trying to do now. One of the primary reasons John Kerry eventually gave up on states like Colorado in 2004 was the lack of money to fight everywhere. By opting out of the public funding system, Obama is likely to have enough resources to do it in 2008, and that’s probably worth a little criticism about reversing his position on the subject.

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A nonprofit campaign finance watchdog group called Campaign Money Watch is going on the offensive against John McCain.

The group, which bills itself as nonpartisan, is filing a complaint today asking the Federal Election Commission to look into two possible campaign finance violations by McCain's campaign. It has also released an advertisement in the Washington, D.C. market on McCain's connection to lobbyists.

The ad focuses on the battle between Airbus, a French company, and Boeing, an American company, for a Pentagon contract.

"Seven of McCain's staff and fundraisers lobbied for Airbus," an announcer says in the spot. "McCain got more money from Airbus' U.S. executives than any other politician. And guess what? John McCain intervened, which helped Airbus get that Pentagon contract."

"Tell John McCain to kick those lobbyists off the Straight Talk express," the announcer adds.



The Republican National Committee sent out an email this morning in response to the ad and filing calling Campaign Money Watch "a partisan organization that routinely attacks Republicans."

"It has accepted contributions from radicals like George Soros and has a connection to the Obama campaign," adds the RNC. "Long and short of it, they have no credibility, and their baseless and unfounded attacks should be completely disregarded."

The complaint suggests that a lobbying firm called The Loeffler Group LLP may have subsidized the salary of McCain's National Finance Director, Susan Nelson, a former Loeffler Group employee. It also questions a contribution of more than $100,000 to the McCain campaign from a company called 3eDC that is party owned by McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.

Read the full complaint to the FEC here.

Hillary Clinton, who is vowing "to carry on this campaign" despite pressure to drop out, is spending this afternoon meeting with her top donors and supporters at her home in Washington DC. This morning, she sent out a fundraising email pointing to the pressure now upon her to leave the Democratic race and asking for donations to get through the "homestretch" of the nomination battle.

"There are some people out there who want to declare this race over now, before all the ballots have been counted or even cast," Clinton writes in the email. "There are some who say they don't know why I'm in this race. So let me tell you why I'm still running."

After writing that she is remaining in the race "for everyone who needs a champion," including hardworking families and "the more than 16 million people like you who have supported me," she adds: "With your help I'm going to keep fighting until every last American has a chance to be heard, and as we learned last night in West Virginia, I know we can win."

Clinton also writes she is staying in the race "because I have the best chance of beating John McCain in November and putting America on the right track."

Last night, just after her big win in West Virginia, Clinton sent out a different fundraising appeal.

"I'm going to carry the energy of tonight's victory into the next contests in Kentucky and Oregon," Clinton wrote, adding: "We've proved conventional wisdom wrong time and again in this race. We did it again tonight in West Virginia. Let's keep going."

Today Barack Obama took to the editorial page of USA Today, laying out the conditions under which he would agree to accept public financing in the general election – an idea his campaign once embraced wholeheartedly, only to be seen as wavering in recent days.

While Obama reiterates his earlier promise to "aggressively pursue" a public financing agreement with the Republican nominee – likely John McCain – if he wins the Democratic nomination, Obama also says that such an agreement needs to go beyond accepting public funding: It also needs to include a promise by both candidates to "commit to discouraging cheating by their supporters; to refusing fundraising help to outside groups; and to limited their own parties to legal forms of involvement."

Those conditions weren't part of Obama's original statement on accepting public financing in November 2007, when he said in a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire, "I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." Now, it appears Obama wants that publicly financed general election to be relatively free of outside influences as well.

Campaigning in Ohio, McCain signaled he'd make Obama's financing an issue, particularly if the Illinois senator opts out of the public system. "We either keep our word or we don't keep our word. I intend to keep my word to the American people," he said, according to the Associated Press. "I think the American people would expect him to hold to that commitment, especially if we want to bring about change."

If Obama were to accept public financing as the Democratic nominee, he would have more than $80 million at his disposal to spend over two months – more than enough, even by this race's standards. But McCain would have the same amount, giving Obama no advantage for the final two months of the election. Still, Obama would be able to raise and spend money freely up until the moment he formally accepts the Democratic nomination, likely giving him an edge headed into what would be the campaign's home stretch.