Thursday, June 19, 2008

Obama — Surprise! — Forsakes Public Financing   [Mark Hemingway]

Just got an e-mail from Obama's campaign asking for money and directing me to a video where Obama says he's not going to be participating in the public financing of elections. Here's his statement:

It's not an easy decision, and 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 interest PACs. And we've already seen that he's not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.

From the very beginning of this campaign, I have asked my supporters to avoid that kind of unregulated activity and join us in building a new kind of politics and you have. Instead of forcing us to rely on millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, you've fueled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, $20, whatever you can afford. And because you did, we've built a grass-roots movement of over 1.5 million Americans. We've won the Democratic nomination by relying on ordinary people coming together to achieve extraordinary things.

Of course, Geraghty notes that as recently as February Obama committed to "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

A couple of thoughts — one, how long is Obama going to whine about the RNC and McCain being "fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs" until he deals with the log in his own eye. Second, public financing and lobbyist money are yet additional examples of how Obama is on both sides of every issue — Iraq, the Cuban embargo, a divided Jerusalem, NAFTA et al. Is the press at all interested in pointing this out?

06/19 12:20 PMShare