Read the complete transcript of John McCain's interview with Chris Wallace.
WALLACE: Let's start with where this race stands now, 16 days before the election. According to the latest RealClearPolitics average of national polls, you trail Obama by seven points, 50-43.
And take a look at the latest electoral map from Karl Rove based on public state polls. He has Obama leading in states with 313 electoral votes, 43 more than he needs to win the presidency. You lead in states with 171 electoral votes.
Senator McCain, aren't you in a world of trouble?
MCCAIN: All right, look. First of all, there are polls this morning — reliable — Zogby, Rasmussen, Gallup — all those that show us in the margin of error or somewhat behind. Are we behind? Sure. I'm the underdog.
I've always — I've been the underdog in a number of races, and we're very happy with the way the campaign is going. I'm very happy with the debate — went there the other night.
And look, I've been on enough campaigns, my friend, to sense enthusiasm and momentum, and we've got it, and I — again, I don't have to look at polls, but the polling numbers have closed dramatically in the last few days.
We're going to be in a tight race and we're going to be up late on election night. That's just — I'm confident of that. I've been in too many campaigns, my friend, not to — not to sense that things are headed our way.
It's going to be tough. Sure, it's tough. I mean, Senator Obama raised $150 million in — I understand, during the month of September, completely breaking whatever idea we had after Watergate to keep the costs and spending on campaigns under control — first time, first time since the Watergate scandal.
And I can tell you this, that has unleashed now in presidential campaigns a new flood of spending that will then cause a scandal, and then we will fix it again.
But Senator Obama has broken it, and he broke his word to me and the American people when he signed a piece of paper when he was a longshot candidate that he would take public financing if I would. He signed a piece of paper.
Then, twice on national television he looked into the camera with Senator Clinton sitting there and said, "I'll sit down and talk to John McCain before I make a decision on public financing or not." He didn't tell the truth.
And finally, there's $200 million of those campaign contributions — there's no record. They're not reported. You can report online now — $200 million that — that we don't know where the money came from — a lot of strange things going on in this campaign.
The American people should know where every penny came from. They know where every penny of my campaign contributions came from.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you about the money, because, as...
MCCAIN: Sure.
WALLACE: ... as you alluded to it — I was going to ask you about it. Obama today announced that he raised $150 million in September. By way of comparison, accepting public financing, you're getting $84 million for the entire campaign.
He's outspending you on advertising 4-1. In the key state of Virginia, for instance, he has three times as many field offices. Is he buying this election?
MCCAIN: Well, I think you could make that argument, but we're not going to let him. We're not going to let that happen.
But what I worry about is future elections, too, not only mine. I worry about — most about mine at the moment, but what's going to happen the next time around, four years from now?
What's going to happen, particularly if you've got an incumbent president, and we no longer stick to the finance — the public financing, which was a result of the Watergate scandal?
So what's going to happen? The dam is broken. We're now going to see huge amounts of money coming into political campaigns, and we know history tells us that always leads to scandal.
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