I heard John McCain came to Baltimore last week. I even wrote two stories about Tuesday’s visit, one before and one after. But I never actually saw McCain.

Some people did see the Republican presidential nominee. More than a dozen even paid $70,100 a couple to have dinner with him. Not a typo: Seventy thousand dollars.

I know what John McCain told the crowd of about 200 people at the later $1,000 a ticket event because David Nitkin of the Sun told me by e-mail that night. Nitkin was the “pool reporter” — the only local reporter allowed in the room for McCain’s speech, along with one national reporter traveling with McCain. Yes, this is the one and the same Nitkin whom the Ehrlich administration declared off limits to state officials, forbidding them to speak to him. The Sun sued Ehrlich over the ban, which included my current colleague Michael Olesker; the Sun lost the suit.

“I was a bit surprised” Nitkin was the choice, said Dick Hug, chief fundraiser for the event and Ehrlich’s money man as well. Ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich, who introduced McCain at the event, and his team declined to comment about Nitkin other than to say “those decisions are made by the McCain campaign.”

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It was a decision made at the last minute, said McCain spokesperson Gail Gitcho, and “we’re not going to comment about the choice of a local pool reporter.” Gitcho, by the way, handled media relations for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.

The failure of McCain to show his face to the rest of the media here conveys a lot about what he thinks of his prospects in Maryland. We’re not likely to see much more of him.

“John McCain is not planning to win Maryland,” Hug conceded. “This is not one of his targeted states.”

Do the math

Some of those targeted states will get a sizable chunk of the $1 million raised Tuesday in Maryland.

If you are wondering, how did an event that brought in 200 people who could donate a maximum of $2,300 apiece raise $1 million instead of $460,000?

By exploiting the loopholes in McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

The “majority of the money” raised, Hug said, came not from the $1,000 tickets, nor the $2,300 ticket holders who got their picture taken with McCain, but from “15 or 16 people” who got to share a private dinner with the candidate — seven or eight couples at $70,100. There were six or seven couples who couldn’t come and still paid $70,100.

Doesn't that exceed contribution limits? No. $2,300 went to McCain’s main committee; another $2,300 went to his “compliance” committee — a group to make sure he follows the complicated finance laws he sponsored; $28,500 went to the Republican National Committee — the maximum allowed by the law — and then $37,000 is split among Republican state committees in Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico and Wisconsin, states which recent polls have shown to be very competitive. The maximum individual contribution of this so-called “soft money” is $65,500 in an election cycle.

Hence the odd $70,100 figure. What did they eat for that price? “Oh, come on, Len,” said an exasperated Hug. It wasn’t the meal that was important. Yeah, but what do you get for a meal that costs more than what half of Maryland households make in a year? A fairly intimate conversation with a man who could be the next president.

O’Malley’s million

As McCain supporters were chowing down their pricey dinner last Tuesday, across the Inner Harbor at the glittering new Silo Point development, a larger crowd of contributors were feting Gov. Martin O’Malley and Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown. Like McCain, they also raised over $1 million, according to O’Malley communications director Rick Abbruzzese.

“It was the most significant fundraiser since the election,” Abbruzzese said. We’ll have to take his word for it, since there were no pool reporters at the event where tickets ranged from $4,000 for the VIPs to $250 for the commoners. We’ll get to see who shelled out the dough in the next annual campaign finance reports — due a mere six months from now.