John McCain's camp and the Republican National Committee have decided to discontinue all co-sponsored TV ads, Advertising Age reported this morning.

This gives McCain more "creative control" over his message, since the joint spots were required by law to divide their focus. That explains the disconnect in many of them, deriding Barack Obama for the first 12.5 seconds and then abruptly switching to a general attack on "congressional liberals."

This also will mean fewer ads overall touting the Arizona senator, whose fundraising lags behind his opponent's by enormous amounts. Indeed, the pace at which the campaign has released ads has fallen off. The camp has only released one ad (subscription) so far this week, compared to its one-a-day routine just a few weeks ago.

McCain has seen ample ad support from the RNC since mid-September. Starting Sept. 18, the number of joint spots (eight) almost matched the single-sponsor ads by both the McCain camp (six) and RNC (three). This correlation and timing shouldn't come as a surprise. Obama, opting out of the public finance system, raised a record $150 million in September. McCain, on the other hand, has been constrained to the $84 million of public money since the first part of September, when those public funds kicked in.

CORRECTION: The original version of this post incorrectly stated what co-sponsored ads will be dropped. McCain and the RNC will continue to produce joint radio spots.