Marc Ambinder and his readers make an interesting catch:

Several readers noticed the disclaimer at the end of John McCain's new ad, "Alaska Maverick."

They're paid for from his general election account. That's the law; from September 1 onward, those ads can't come from the primary kitty. McCain '08 becomes McCain-Palin '08 on Friday, but the ad -- which will air on national cable -- CNN and Fox -- tonight -- comes from the $84 million grant McCain will receive from the government.

Jonathan Martin notes that as this ad is running in "key states" it may in fact amount to one of the "video press release[s]" the McCain campaign has so often released in the hopes of conning the Beltway media to disseminate their message largely free of charge. Fair enough. But this does mark a turning point in the campaign in which the McCain campaign -- unlike the Obama campaign, which did not opt into the public financing system -- but go up against a spending ceiling. Yes, John McCain can benefit from advertisements by the Republican National Committee. However, because these independent expenditures by law are not allowed to be coordinated with campaign headquarters, McCain and his closest advisors cannot have a hand in their creation -- a problem, as noted a moment ago, not faced by Barack Obama.

Of course Obama needs to raise serious money in order to make this tradeoff pay off -- much more than the $47 million raised by the McCain campaign in August (we don't yet have Obama's August numbers, but here's to hoping they exceed any and all expectations, which they might as they could for the first time include serious general election dollars, which the Obama campaign has yet to put much effort into raising). But if Obama can continue to break fundraising records, this monetary and control disparity could be one of the most noticeable differences between the campaigns going forward.