McCain: $27 million in July

On a conference call this morning, John McCain campaign manager Rick Davis talked about the Republican fund-raising operation, and said the campaign raised $27 million in July and completed the month with $21 million cash on hand.

The RNC will report raising $26 million in July, ending the month with $75 million cash on hand, Davis said.

In addition, Davis said, GOP state committees in key states have another $100 million cash on hand. Overall, the McCain campaign feels that they are in a very competitive position with the Barack Obama campaign. Beginning Sept. 1, the Republican will have more than $80 million in federal matching funds.

Ed Morrisey of Hot Air asked if Obama's foreign trip had affected fundraising, and Davis said "not so much in July as in August" there had been "an uptick in Internet fundraising" as a result of the success of a YouTube video that got over 1 million views.

Davis noted that both parties are holding their conventions relatively late this year, so that there are only 10 weeks from the start of the conventions until Election Day, which he called "one of the most intense political periods we've ever seen."

Davis assessed the current situation as a "pretty even race," saying that the McCain campaign has "effectively consolidated" the Republican base, remains "competitive with independent voters," and is doing well with "disaffected Democrats."

UPDATE: Showing his alarm over the fundraising success of the McCain campaign, Barack Obama went bodysurfing.

UPDATE II: Ed Morrisey notes:

The invitation came at short notice, and I assumed it would cover their fundraising numbers for July. Calling a press conference to announce it indicated that they either had good news, or needed to explain bad news.

Probably Team Maverick expects Obama to announce huge numbers for July, and so they wanted to get ahead of the story by putting McCain's numbers in context of the large RNC/state GOP fundraising operation.