Obama says no to public financing; McCain throws hissy fit
Given Barack Obama's astronomical fundraising numbers, it was only a matter of time before he decided to eschew public funds to finance his campaign. From today's Times:
Democrat Barack Obama today rejected public financing for his presidential campaign, changing an earlier stand and becoming the first major party candidate to drop out of the system since it began after the Watergate scandal....
Early in the primary season, Obama had said he would use public financing if his Republican opponent did. But that was before the presumptive Democratic nominee harnessed the Internet and became a fund-raising powerhouse.
This move not only makes Obama the first major candidate in more than 30 years to reject public funding (which forbids candidates from raising private funds), but also goes back on his very public indications he would agree to public funding. (See an earlier Times' editorial admonishing Obama for waffling on his pledge.)
Needless to say, McCain has been gleefully calling foul all morning — he can afford to point fingers, in part because his fundraising numbers are pretty anemic compared to Obama's.
But McCain is no angel, either. Remember when he allegedly used public funds as backup to apply for a loan, and then tried immediately to withdraw from the public funding system? (Attempting to escape, ironically, from the very system he helped set up.) The outraged Dems filed suit shortly thereafter. The Federal Election Commission, lacking quorum, couldn't do much about it, either — which probably suited McCain just fine.
That incident aside, there are plenty of other loopholes that allow the private sector to creep in, a point Obama drove home in a video released this morning:
It's not an easy decision, especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections. But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interests PACs. We've already seen that he's not gonna stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.
Swiftboating, anyone?
Tell us what you think:
*Photo: Joshua Roberts / Bloomberg News
The headline on this piece is really unprofessional for a newspaper like the Times. It's like something on Inside Edition.
Posted by: Dennis Myers | June 19, 2008 at 02:46 PM
Obama is just another slimeball Chicago polithug. Pity, I switched parties to support him in the primary. He will get buried by the Clinton Machine before the convention and we will be stuck with McCain and company.
Posted by: Otto Focus | June 19, 2008 at 02:34 PM
I guess this is what Change is all about...
Posted by: Fred | June 19, 2008 at 02:31 PM
Wrong!
PAC spending is pretty even, especially when you consider the non federal reporting committees such as America Coming Together, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_Coming_Together, which should add 10 million plus to the democrats side in the 2006 year.
PAC funding summary:
http://www.fec.gov/press/press2007/20071009pac/20071009pac.shtml
you can try to spin this all you want but Obama has lied, so much for change in politics.
Posted by: Jarrad | June 19, 2008 at 02:14 PM
Would we call this flipfloprisy? Ron
Posted by: Ronald Johnson | June 19, 2008 at 02:13 PM
You've got to be completely brainwashed to think that Obama isn't already running his campaign using public financing.
1.5 million people have funded his campaign so far.
McCain should be happy with the fact that Obama is choosing not to use the tax dollars of Americans that might not even want to vote for him; especially since he wouldn't be spending public funds and using taxes to run the government...the exact thing McCain and the Republican party is against.
Talk about flip-flopping hypocrites!
Posted by: Andrew | June 19, 2008 at 02:11 PM
Did the L.A. Times really just use "hissy fit" in a news headline? Wow. Journalism is truly dead.
Posted by: Dan Gerard | June 19, 2008 at 02:00 PM
The issue here is not whether he takes the funding or not, but that this is further proof that we can't trust the empty suit any further than we can throw it. Despite the suit being empty, it is full of ambiguous platitudes of "Change" which really weigh him down. And really, "Swiftboating, anyone?" The only reason Kerry got "swiftboated" is because people from his past came out and said how full of it he was, which will certainly happen to SNOBama because he's worse .
Posted by: coco | June 19, 2008 at 01:57 PM
It's somewhat ironic that by eschewing public funding, Obama is in effect turning his back on special interest groups and looking to the larger American public to fund his campaign.
What this proves to me, is that it is time for campaign funding reform in our country.
Posted by: ceeJay | June 19, 2008 at 01:43 PM
straight up chess game and obama is ahead. man, is mc cain trying to be slick or what? thanks for posting the information skye. will spread that post over the net
Posted by: dee | June 19, 2008 at 01:40 PM
This is public financing.
Posted by: ella | June 19, 2008 at 01:24 PM
At first I was against this move by Obama, but then his campaign mentioned that they'd tried to make a deal with McCain not use 527 organizations and PAC funding, but couldn't meet an agreement. If McCain isn't willing to back up his side of the deal there's no reason Obama should give up one of his advantages.
Posted by: skye | June 19, 2008 at 01:20 PM