Hoist by his own petard.

Senator John McCain, famous as the champion of federal regulation of Presidential campaigns, is considering adopting public financing for his presidential campaign (hat tip: Atrios):

McCain campaign officials said this week that they are considering accepting public funds for the primary campaign. McCain has raised $24 million for his presidential bid and has only $2 million in the bank.

McCain could accept up to $250 in federal matching funds for every contribution he collected, but the public assistance would be capped at around $21 million, according to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) spokesman.

More arduous for McCain, however, would be the spending limits that public funds would trigger in key primary states. If the presidential primaries were held this year, McCain could spend only $818,000 in New Hampshire — a limit that includes funds his campaign has already spent in the Granite State.

Let's indulge in a bit more schadenfreude over this. Senator John McCain -- legislative master of the Senate, champion of campaign finance reform, and fearsome enemy of the very appearance of corruption -- now finds his own presidential campaign in such a desperate shortage of funds that he is considering entering his very own 100% corruption-free public campaign financing system.

Of course, this only underscores the fundamental problem of Senator McCain's campaign, which is that the Senator himself is far too statist to be a viable Republican presidental contender. Think of Senator McCain as the Andrew Sullivan of the Republican party; no matter how much water he carries for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, he'll still vigorously insist that he is the one true conservative voice in American politics.