With Huge Money Advantage, Obama Ramps Up Ads

So far, the complaints have not prompted FEC action. And Obama's controversial decision to forgo public funding and instead raise money on his own is paying huge dividends.

The most noticeable evidence of his spending advantage has been on the airwaves, where, in some states, Obama been running seven or eight times as many commercials as McCain. Evan Tracey, an analyst with the Campaign Media Analysis Group, called the disparity stunning.

"McCain's in a shouting match with a guy holding a bullhorn," Tracey said.

Obama booked nearly $4 million in ads in Virginia last week, compared with $487,149 spent there by McCain. He held a similar spending edge in almost every battleground state, Tracey said, enabling him to respond to negative ads by McCain while keeping a regular cycle of positive ads running as well.

Obama has so much money available that he is continuing to push into advertising venues rarely, if ever, visited by political candidates. He has plans for a prime-time infomercial -- the first of its type since Ross Perot used the format 16 years ago. And Advertising Age reported yesterday that an Obama "in-game advertisement" appeared in the EA video game Burnout Paradise. The racing game features a Barack Obama billboard announcing that early voting has begun and references VoteForChange.com, a site paid for by the Obama campaign.

Republican political strategists have acknowledged the Obama advantage, but they argue that if a financial edge is all it takes to win an election, McCain would not be the nominee. (He was massively outspent by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani during the primaries.)

The biggest difficulty for McCain, said Republican political consultant Kevin Madden, is that he has been forced to play defense in states -- such as North Carolina and Indiana -- where he should not be spending money at all at this point.

"The campaign with the money can pin the other campaign down in places where they don't want to be," Madden said.

One result of Obama's decision to opt out of the public financing system is that his campaign accounts will not automatically be subject to an audit after the election, as is standard with campaigns financed from the U.S. Treasury.

Last week, RNC lawyers filed an FEC complaint that they hope will prompt an investigation and audit. The complaint said the RNC believes that the Obama campaign "has accepted prohibited foreign national contributions and knowingly done so through its failure to reasonably investigate contributions originating abroad."

Obama aides dispute this, saying they have bent over backward trying to root out illegal contributions. But that task, they said, has been made difficult by the sheer volume of contributions, many in increments of $5 and $10.

The campaign has taken a number of steps to intercept illegal contributions, whether they are from people using fake names or from donors who are not U.S. citizens, Obama aides said. The campaign has initiated procedures to flag questionable contributions and follow up with donors to determine whether those contributions are lawful or should be refunded.

"Every campaign faces the challenge of screening and reviewing its contributions," LaBolt said. "And we have been aggressive about taking every available step to make sure our contributions are appropriate, updating our systems when necessary."