So who is giving money to McCain?

He isn't getting any love from the members of his own party. He isn't getting any donations from the PACs of fellow republicans in the congress. So who is underwriting the campaign until the public financing kicks in after the convention (that a whole passel of republicans are scared to attend)?

Well! The Washington Post has the answer to that question!



Contributions to McCain from executives and employees in the oil industry rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona flip-flopped and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling. It was a veritable money-gusher, bringing in $1.1 million to McCain last month, and 3/4 of it was made after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban compare that to the $116,000 that same group donated in March, the $283,000 they donated in April and the $208,000 donated in May.

McCain said the reversal came as a response to citizen anger over skyrocketing energy prices, but most Americans are smart enough to realize that any relief would be years away and not likely worth the associated costs, when the stuff is finite and alternatives will have to be developed sooner or later anyway. (We should have listened to Carter in 1977. I did. But I was 13 and politically powerless, and pissed off at the so-called grown-ups around me who put their fingers in their ears, sang "lalalalala I can't heeeaaarrr yooouuuuu!" and elected the idiot Reagan four years later. But I digress...)

The Washington Post gets perilously close to practicing journalism when the reporter points out the timing of the sudden change in McCain's course:

McCain delivered the speech before heading to Texas for a series of fundraisers with energy industry executives, and the day after the speech he raised $1.3 million at a private luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club, according to local news accounts.

"The timing was significant," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain's oil industry contributions. "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money."

Of course the campaign denies any connection between the timing of the flip-flop and the fact that he was going to Texas to fundraise. But not being utter morons, we don't believe them.