McCain’s NYTime’s Op-Ed (or lack thereof)

Posted By: Nick

 
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is going to circulate a letter asking for a third party group to pay for a full page ad in the NYTimes to feature the McCain Op-Ed that was rejected.  Seems like a good enough plan to make sure McCain’s response to Obama gets printed, but it seems to me there is another issue here.

If McCarthy (with the blessing of the Republican leadership, as the article states) is asking directly for this to be done by a third party group, isn’t that illegal coordination between the party/McCain Campaign and a 527?  Campaign Finance law states that a campaign cannot soordinate in any way with a 527 group.  If anyone has more information about how this specific situation would work, let me know.  But it seems to me that it’s a violation if it happens.

Here’s the part that I think is a problem:

House GOP sources suggest a Republican leadership PAC may pay for the ad if no outside group steps forward to do so, although the cost would run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

If a leadership PAC (run by an elected Congress, or whatever) runs the ad, I think that is ok; I’m not positive, but I think it is.  But if it is an outside group, I’m pretty sure that’s a clear violation.