McCain Backers Finding Ways Around Law He Sponsored

Desperate to keep up with Barack Obama's powerful fundraising apparatus, John McCain’s allies have found ways of skirting the very campaign finance laws the Arizona senator helped write, the Wall Street Journal reports. Republican strategists are pushing donations toward a fund used to elect governors—not subject to dollar limits—on the theory that state-level pushes will boost the top of the ticket.

"It's like planting a lot of food out in the field for one cow; it helps that one cow, but all the other cows appreciate it, too," says the man behind the approach. Republicans are also using an approach in which individuals bundle more than $70,000 to various party branches—and there are always so-called 527 groups, theoretically unaffiliated with the parties and not subject to ceilings.