Will voters care that Barack Obama isn't taking public financing?
My guess would be that for most people, the answer is "no." Most Americans don't pay nearly as much attention to the minutae of politics as cable news talk show hosts, New York Times reporters and assorted political junkies do, and so probably don't quite know the difference. Even those who do, probably could really give a damn whether Obama takes public financing. I know I don't. And yet, this is one of the three or four stories playing on a loop on MSNBC today (the others being the woman in the Muslim headscarf who wasn't allowed to appear behind Barack in Michigan, Cindy McCain dissing Michelle Obama over pride in country, and Michelle co-hosting "The View." So much for the Russert news legacy...) So since every blogger apparently must, let's grab a slice of the New York Times front pager (which at least does not contain the word "makeover..."):
WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he would not participate in the public financing system for presidential campaigns. He argued that the system had collapsed, and would put him at a disadvantage running against Senator John McCain, his likely Republican opponent.
With his decision, Mr. Obama became the first candidate of a major party to decline public financing — and the spending limits that go with it — since the system was created in 1976, after the Watergate scandals.
Mr. Obama made his announcement in a video message sent to supporters and posted on the Internet. While it was not a surprise — his aides have been hinting that he would take this step for two months — it represented a turnabout from his strong earlier suggestion that he would join the system. Mr. McCain has been a champion of public financing of campaign throughout his career.
“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,” he said. “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.”
Mr. Obama had pledged to meet with Mr. McCain following the primaries to attempt to work out an agreement on financing. That meeting never took place, aides to Mr. Obama said, because a meeting between lawyers for the two sides was not fruitful. “It became clear to me that there wasn’t any basis for future discussion,” said Robert Bauer, the general counsel for Mr. Obama’s campaign. ...
The important point here is that Obama's earlier pledge was not to accept public financing, but rather to meet with the McCain campaign to try and work out a deal. The deal didn't work out. And frankly, he doesn't need the money.
Besides, it should be noted that Obama is able to make this move precisely because his campaign has raised its multi-millions mostly from small donors -- ordinary Americans whose numbers are so large, they make his campaign the de facto equivalent of a publicly financed campaign. You can quibble over who the "public" in question is, but you can't argue with the fact that with millions of small donors, Obama hasn't lived up to the spirit of the law.
The pundits will have a field day with his "reversal," but, as with the unadvisability of ever asking Rudy Giuliani to shill for you on the subject of national security (you remember Rudy -- the guy who put the terrorism response command center INSIDE the World Trade Center after the 1993 WTC bombing, and whose claims to fame on the security front including presiding over the murder of wallet-wielding immigrants by police and having NYPD cops shuttle his mistress around town while she walked her dog...) just as you don't ever use Mr. "noun, verb and 9/11" to rebut ANYTHING, John "Flipper" McCain ought to hold his horses before considering charging Obama with felonious changing of the mind...
For reactions to the Obama decision, head over to the HuffPo.
