After Ron Fournier's latest antics, you'd think the Associated Press would be a little more careful about serving up their "news" with such an obvious pro-McCain slant. 

You'd be wrong.

Humble pie nourished McCain's campaign

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Republicans lugged money, fame and promise into their race for the presidential nomination. One of them carried his own bags, tooled around New Hampshire with a few volunteers, flew commercial and won.

John McCain's diet of humble pie in the summer of 2007 might have been the best thing that happened to his campaign.

At first it's hard to understand why the AP chose this moment to write a story about John McCain's campaign in the summer of 2007.  But when you read the article, it comes off as a tailor-made piece of counter-spin, designed for one purpose: to fight the McCain-as-elitist narrative, so powerfully driven home by the recent publicity surrounding his lavish 4, er, 7, er, 12-house lifestyle.

As the earliest perceived front-runner, McCain saw an elaborate organization grow around him, populated by some of the George W. Bush operatives he had faced as rivals in 2000. He wore the structure like a fancy, ill-fitting suit.

Translation: The GOP built an expensive operation for McCain, but maverick John just wasn't comfortable being surrounded by all that money and Republican establishment frippery.

Just over a year ago, McCain was laying off more than 50 campaign workers, cutting pay and seeing his poll numbers mired in single digits in some of the big early states.

The Iraq war he supported had been going badly and he obstinately was sticking to his position. Social conservatives, masterful organizers, were not sold on him.

By necessity as well as by nature, McCain was meeting small groups of voters and standing out easily as the most accessible of the major candidates in either party.

You could edge up to him at a New Hampshire bar and shoot the breeze. He flew Southwest, without an entourage. ...

Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who has known the Arizona senator for 25 years, said the crisis was oddly liberating.

"All he could do was go up to New Hampshire and be John McCain," he said. "It was a streak of good fortune that he ran out of money and went up there and was himself. That's what people love — that he is himself, not some sort of synthetic character trying to figure out who he is."

What a guy!  Standing up against the hard right, schmoozing with regular folks, taking commercial flights by himself.  Yep, John flying solo, just like always.

"The middle seat on Southwest gave me a lot more opportunity to interact with voters," he allowed in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm not complaining. Still have town hall meetings. Still able to do 95 percent of what I did before."

And there the story ends.

Or does it?  Did McMaverick really spend all last summer flying Southwest?  Funny, the AP forgot to mention this:

Given Senator John McCain’s signature stance on campaign finance reform, it was not surprising that he backed legislation last year requiring presidential candidates to pay the actual cost of flying on corporate jets. The law, which requires campaigns to pay charter rates when using such jets rather than cheaper first-class fares, was intended to reduce the influence of lobbyists and create a level financial playing field.

But over 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.

Wait... this is a law McCain himself helped to create?  I'm sure that exemption was purely coincidental...

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.

“This amounts to a subsidy for his campaign, which is notable given how badly they were struggling last year,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that collects and analyzes campaign data. ...

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.”