WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent $37 million (all figures in U.S. funds) in September, leaving him $47 million for the campaign in October.
McCain's monthly financial report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows he spent nearly two-thirds of his money -- $22.5 million -- on advertising as he tried to keep up with rival Barack Obama's ad blitz in battleground states.
McCain is no longer raising money because he is participating in the presidential election public financing system. He received $84.1 million in early September from the federal treasury and cannot exceed that amount in spending between early September and Election Day Nov. 4.
McCain's numbers stand in sharp contrast to Obama's. The Democratic nominee is not participating in public financing and raised a record-shattering $150 million in September.
Obama has been outspending McCain this month in advertising by a ratio of about 4-1. McCain has received significant help from the Republican National Committee, which raised $66 million in September and will report $77.5 million cash on hand at the start of October.
That means that together, McCain and the party began the month with more than $124 million.
The party can spend up to $19 million in coordination with the campaign. The party and McCain have also split the costs of "hybrid" ads that criticize Obama as well as Democrats in Congress.
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said Monday that "a vast majority" of the campaign's $22.5 million in ad spending was in conjunction with the RNC, essentially doubling the value of its September ad spending.
The RNC has also set up an independent expenditure operation to run ads that help McCain, but which cannot be coordinated with the candidate's campaign. The RNC budgeted about $18 million for those types of ads during the final two-week stretch of the campaign.
Davis predicted that by Election Day the McCain campaign and the RNC will have spent nearly $400 million for the two-month fall campaign. He downplayed the impact of Obama's money on the advantage Obama currently enjoys in polls.
"The lack of money in Wall Street has had more to do with the outcome of this last month politically than the money in Barack Obama's bank account," Davis said. Jokingly, he added: "Maybe he could invest a little of that and increase our chances by helping the recovery. That's our new strategy -- make him buy stock."
Still, the financial differences between the Obama and McCain camps has been especially evident in advertising. Davis said Monday that McCain and the RNC had been able to keep pace with Obama in September, only to see him surge past them in October.
Obama is advertising in a number of Republican states that have not been considered competitive presidential battlegrounds in the past, including Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Indiana, Montana and West Virginia.
Meanwhile, the party stopped airing its independent ads in Wisconsin, though McCain has continued. Some Republicans have begun to privately question why McCain also continues to advertise in Iowa, where polls show Obama with double-digit polling leads.
"We make decisions based on where we think we can play," Davis said, noting that polls he has seen place McCain closer to Obama. "The Iowa numbers look pretty good to me."
Outside groups also were stepping into the advertising fray. The liberal MoveOn.org planned to spend $1.6 million on advertising during the final two weeks of the campaign. The group's ads included one of a talking moose criticizing McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. The Republican Jewish Coalition is spending more than $1 million in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Nevada criticizing Obama's for expressing a willingness to meet with leaders of "rogue" foreign countries.
Davis reiterated the campaign's complaint that Obama has not disclosed the identities of the hundreds of thousands of donors who have contributed less than $200 to his campaign. Legally, political campaigns are only required to identify in federal reports those donors whose contributions exceed $200.
The Obama campaign on Sunday reported that it had added more than 600,000 new donors in September for a total pool of contributors of about 3.1 million. It said the average donation was $86. That means the campaign does not have to itemize the donations of a significant number of contributors.
"The vast majority of those are probably legitimate but they are being kept secret by the Obama campaign for no good reason," Davis said.
McCain's reports to the Federal Election Commission also only reveal donors who give more than $200. But a searchable data base on his campaign Web site identifies all donors, no matter what amount they give.
In a sign of its tighter budget, the campaign cut back its travel spending in September to about $1.7 million compared to the $3 million it spent in August. Its payroll costs remained roughly the same at $1.2 million
