Obama Opts Out of Public Financing

by Steve Soto

Obama made it official a short while ago: he's opting out of public financing for the general election.

"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.

Despite the relatively lame explanation given here, there was little doubt that Obama would do this. Why would you build a donor list of well over a million people, all giving you money every month like an ATM, establishing a fundraising advantage that allows you to spread the map and push McCain coast-to-coast, just to give away that advantage?

McCain can howl all he wants, as I would expect he would, about Obama breaking his pledge. But McCain is not the person to be making an issue over someone else's integrity.