McCain's Internal Audit: More Questions

Matt Lewis | August 21, 2007 10:09 AM

As I reported, Sen. John McCain confirmed to me on a conference call yesterday that he has ordered an internal audit of his past campaign expenses.

To his credit (and in the spirit of "

Straight Talk"), Senator McCain answered my question fully, and even gave me an opportunity to follow-up (which I declined).

However, later in the day, I did attempt to follow-up with his campaign. Following are the questions I asked:

- He (Sen. McCain) said the audit was internal. Is this Patton Boggs, another internal consultant, or is it from literally within his campaign.

- Are they looking at all aspects of the campaign, or a specific part (media, internet, etc.).

- Is the goal to catch malfeasance, or just to learn from their mistakes?

Rather than responding to my questions, the campaign sent me the following response:

“The campaign has performed an internal review and reduced spending to ensure we have the resources to compete aggressively in the early primary states.”

One view of McCain's audit is that it's an entirely responsible thing to do, in order to ensure his campaign to avoids past mistakes. But that's assuming the spending was all on the up-and-up.

However, about a month ago, The Wall Street Journal took a shot at McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, writing that he "stood to benefit from campaign expenditures ..."

... Might this audit have something to do with the WSJ story?