McCain has $5.18M cash on hand

ABC News’s Jake Tapper, David Chalian, and Bret Hovell report:  With a burn rate a rival campaign official called "mind boggling," the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain (R-AZ) announced today that while it had raised $13 million during the first quarter of 2007, it had spent $8.38 million, about 64% of what it raised.

Not even factoring in the campaign’s $1.8 million in outstanding debts, McCain begins this next, increasingly competitive quarter of the presidential race with only $5.18 million in cash on hand, far below his two closest rivals for the Republican nomination, according to the campaign’s finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission Saturday.

It was more bad news for the Arizona Republican, who has made fiscal responsibility one of his campaign clarion calls to conservatives.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has more than twice as much primary cash on hand as McCain – $11.8 million – and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has about $10.8 million available to him in the primaries. Both the Romney and Giuliani campaigns filed their disclosure reports Friday.

McCain raised money from more individual contributors than either of his closest rivals. Just over fifty thousand people gave to the McCain campaign. About thirty-two thousand gave to Governor Romney, Giuliani received cash from approximately twenty-eight thousand people.

McCain’s numbers fall well below the top three contenders for the Democratic nomination as well. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, raised $26 million and $25 million, respectively, and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina raised about $14 million. None of the Democrats have filed their reports with the FEC at this time.

McCain has acknowledged "disappointing" fundraising, and campaign officials say they have taken steps to correct the problem. They say they are pleased with the direction the fundraising is going – they raised $2 million in January, $3 million in February, and $8 million in March of this year. 

McCain campaign insiders also note that former Rep. Tom Loeffler, R-Texas, is now on board and brought the national finance chairs together for a meeting this week and explained to them that the campaign is now installing high levels of accountability in its fundraising structure.

"Obviously, we would have liked to have raised more money," McCain said at a press conference in Arizona on Monday.  "We’ll try and do better next time."