McCain to attend two Twin Cites events
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Sen. John McCain is headlining a GOP fundraiser at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis tonight. He will then hold a town hall style meeting with 200 people.
McCain will speak to an invited audience in St. Paul. His campaign says it gave tickets to a randomly selected group of "undecided voters."
Tickets to the fundraiser event start at $1,000 dollars and go up to $50,000 dollars.
The most an individual can give directly to a presidential candidate is $4,600 dollars.
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Donations above that will be distributed to the Republican National Committee and various state Republican parties.
Steve Weissman from the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute said joint fundraising arrangements are perfectly legal. But he said they violate the spirit of campaign finance law.
"If you're combining the collection of all these diffferent entities, the national party, the state party and the candidate, then you have the potential, more potential for the donor to go up to a candidate and say 'I gave you $70,000.' For anti-corruption reasons, people don't want anyone to be able to say to a candidate 'I gave you $70,000,'" Weissman said.
A McCain spokeswoman rejected that criticism.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama also has a joint fundraising arrangement with his national party.
Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey says having McCain in the state gives Republicans a great opportunity to inform voters about the GOP agenda.
Carey says today's visit underscores the political importance of Minnesota in the presidential race.
"Look, here we're in the middle of June, we've already had multiple visits by Barack Obama, and John McCain's in town at this point in time, spending close to a full day. I think that's a good indication that both sides know Minnesota is going to be key to victory in 2008, and this is the year Republicans go over the top," Carey said.
Carey said although some Minnesota Republicans would have preferred someone other than McCain to head the GOP ticket, he thinks Republicans are uniting behind McCain.
