The Times finds another instance of McCain gaming the campaign finance laws, enabled again by the fact that there’s no quorum of members of commissioners at the FEC, the same situation that’s allowing him withdraw from the public financing system over the FEC commissioners objections. In this case, when his campaign was on the skids last year, McCain began using a corporate jet owned by Hensley & Company, the beer distributorship owned by his wife.
It’s a complicated story. And at least in the Times telling, there don’t seem to be any laws broken, more breaking the spirit of the law.
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.
