Opinion: john mccain may lag in money, but rnc out-raises the dnc by 5 times

_This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts._ Led by chairman MIKE DUNCAN, the Republican National

Committee ended May with 13 times more money in the bank than its Democratic counterpart and raised five times as much money in the same time frame. As The Times’ campaign finance guru Dan

Morain points out, the sums are significant as presumptive Republican nominee Sen. JOHN MCCAIN squares off against the far more richly funded Sen. BARACK OBAMA for the last 136 days of the

general election campaign. Based on the numbers so far, the Republican Party appears poised to act as the financial equalizer in the fall campaign. The RNC disclosed that it ended May with

$53.5 million in the bank, compared to $3.9 million for the Democratic National Committee, which is headed by HOWARD DEAN. Thanks to the continuing GOP popularity and fundraising attraction

of PRESIDENT BUSH, the RNC continued to vastly out-raise the Democratic Party, amassing $24.4 million just in May. Of that, it raised $7.1 million in small donations of $200 or less, the

so-called unitemized receipts. The RNC raised more in small increments than the DNC’s total take in May of $4.8 million. McCain himself reported raising slightly more than $21 million on his

own, roughly the same as Obama, whose monthly money haul fell by $11 million in May. Now that Obama has rescinded his signed promise to accept public funds, he’s hoping for a substantial

dollar boost from onetime supporters of his opponent, Sen. HILLARY CLINTON. --Andrew Malcolm