How is John McCain's attempt to back out of the public financing system getting tripped up by the failed nomination of vote-suppression guru Hans von Spakovsky? Whose evil genius was brought to light by the US Attorney scandal?

And how is it that if John McCain goes ahead and keeps spending money over the campaign finance limits he agreed to abide by back in August he could, at least in theory, do five years hard time in the slammer?

We unravel this and other mysteries of McCain's campaign finance 'Now I'm in, Now I'm not!' boogaloo in Paul Kiel's latest installment at TPMmuckraker.com.