McCain fund-raising picks up

John McCain's campaign money machine picked up more steam in July, bringing in more than the month before for the fifth consecutive time and allowing him to air a barrage of TV ads against Democratic rival Barack Obama.

McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, said today that the campaign collected $27 million in July, giving him $21 million to spend as August started. McCain's campaign must empty its bank account this month before the Republican National Convention, so Davis called the next two weeks "an important period" during which McCain must target his spending wisely.

Once McCain formally accepts the nomination Sept. 4 in St. Paul, he will accept $84 million in public financing for the fall campaign and will not to able to raise additional money on his own.

But the national GOP can raise and spend to help McCain, and it is doing much better than its Democratic counterpart so far. The Republican National Committee raised another $26 million last month, and at the start of August had $75 million to spend, Davis said.

He told reporters on a conference call that McCain will be "flush" with money to run the general election campaign he wants, with the public money, plus about $20 million in a coordinated fund with the RNC. McCain has about 600,000 total donors and can try to tap another 900,000 compiled by the RNC, Davis said.

"We have a formidable financial structure," he said. "We feel very confident that we are in a good position."

But in fund-raising, McCain is still far behind Obama, whose campaign passed the 2 million donor mark on Thursday.

Obama has not disclosed his July fund-raising numbers yet, but had his second-best month in June with about $52 million, compared to McCain's $21 million.

For the entire campaign through June 30, Obama had outraised McCain about $340 million to $145 million.

Obama is not taking public money for the fall campaign, in hopes that he can raise more himself .

Despite the overall money disadvantage, Davis said that McCain is buying more TV time than Obama in battleground states. With the ads and other campaign activities, McCain is consolidating the Republican base, attracting disaffected Democrats, and putting together the broad base of support he has typically had, Davis said.

He pointed to a series of polls, nationally and in key swing states, showing a close race with Obama, and said that if after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3, someone had predicted the situation now, McCain's campaign would have been "pretty thrilled."