The Washington McClatchy bureau is reporting that Republican 527 groups are oddly lacking in number during this general election season as compared to 2004:

Obama cited the threat of unregulated attack groups — called “527s” because they’re authorized to raise unlimited cash under that section of the Internal Revenue Service code — to justify dropping his pledge to take public financing — along with its spending limits — for the general election campaign.

Yet there’s no 2008 equivalent to the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which spent $22 million attacking Democrat John Kerry. Prominent groups and donors that played key roles in independent conservative 527 groups four years ago say they’re sitting out this election. And while they’ve raised more than they did at this point four years ago, the independent pro-Republican groups still lag more than $50 million behind pro-Democratic groups.

You can argue whether or not groups like the Swift Boat vets were key to taking out Kerry.  Probably, it was a variety of factors, of which Swift Boat vets were a part.  Yet, it is interesting, but not unexpected that they’re not taking a larger role in this election.  The most likely reason is that the candidate they’d be supporting is not supporting them:

Finally, many contributors are wary about bankrolling a high-profile campaign to help McCain, who’s long criticized unregulated money in politics.

“Why stick your neck out for him?” said one Republican operative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely criticize his party’s presumptive nominee.

McCain has been on the record as being against these groups, yet it seemed the during the primaries, they just weren’t listening to him.  They seemed to be in fine working order then.  Thus, The Other McCain has a slightly different explanation for the inactivity of the Republican 527s:

One major reason for the shortage of anti-Obama efforts is that many conservative activists put all their eggs into the anti-Hillary basket. Conservative authors in the past couple of years had issued a whole catalog of anti-Hillary books that are now politically irrelevant. Richard Collins rolled out his StopHerNow.com group in 2006, and in January, Citizens United premiered “Hillary: The Movie.” Having invested so heavily in stopping her, the “usual suspects” on the Right have fewer resources left for stopping him.

So with the lack and dismissing of 527 support by McCain, where can he look?  The RNC, maybe?  According to Eliza Carney in her National Journal blog, the RNC currently has $53.5 million as compared to the DNCs $3.9 million.  The RNC has 10 times more money than the DNC, which is also having trouble raising money for August’s Denver convention.  The RNC may be able to help McCain by creating ads and performing other activities to promote him (no robocalls like 2006, please!).  However, this may make a lot of Republicans angry.

Why?  Well, I think it’s because you have to follow where the money is coming from.  Part of the reason I think there’s a large disparity between the DNC and Obama and the RNC and McCain is because of the popularity of the candidates.  Obama, who’s very popular among Democrats, is more likely to get the bulk of the money.  Just look at his Internet fundraising success.  When this happens, the DNC is ignored, since voters have already given to Obama.  Add on Obama’s PAC money ban and it’s hurting the DNC.   McCain, on the other hand, has been unfavorable among his fellow Republicans (until recently perhaps).  We all know he’s always been hurting for money nearly his entire campaign, and it’s probably because most of what he could potentially get has been going to the RNC.

So, I think McCain is going to have to rely on any help he can get from the RNC.  Yet, his accountants need to keep things fiscally responsible within the campaign, because lets face it: the RNC has other things to worry about.  Like trying to maintain, never mind increase, their presence in Congress.  The lack of active 527s is probably going to make things even more difficult for the Republicans.  But, that’s the McCain wants it, nice and clean.  I commend his decision, but if for some reason the RNC isn’t able to assist him as much as their money would suggest it could, it might come back to haunt him on election day.

Still, liberal 527s are faring little better:

Yet pro-Democratic groups also are seeing some reluctance this year to jump into the campaign, perhaps thinking they’re not needed given Obama’s prodigious fundraising or perhaps bowing to his preference that they send money to him instead.

Contributions to independent, pro-Democratic 527 groups in the first 16 months of this campaign totaled $131 million, down from $146 million during the same period of the 2004 campaign.

Yet, even with 527 financial woes on the liberal side, I doubt groups like Move On are going to sit on the sidelines during then general election.  We’ll see.