John McCain isn't the only opportunistic, two-faced politico. Barack Obama, finding himself the likely Democratic nominee, is already reneging on a campaign pledge. A year ago, when he and John McCain were long-shot nominees, the two made a pact that, should they run against
each other in the general election, they'd agree to publicly finance their campaigns. (This has been the unofficial rule since the 70's for all presidential elections; Hillary Clinton, conspicuously, made no such promise to abide by it.)
What does public financing mean? It means a candidate lets his party flip the bill for TV ads, mail-out literature, transportation, staff expenses, etc., as opposed to using the money he raised directly from his supporters.
Well, now guess what? Obama raised $100 million in 2007, and a staggering $32 million in the month of January 2008 alone. According to Reid Wilson at Real Clear Politics, "If he continued to raise the amount he achieved in January, Obama would have raised an additional $300 million this year, more than $100 million above John Kerry's spending in 2004."
Whereas that poor maverick McCain raised a paltry $40 million in 2007 and closed out the year $1.5 million in the hole. Public financing would clearly benefit him more at this point.
Now do you suppose that Ch-ch-ch-Changes Obama is sticking to his word and agreeing to his earlier gentlemen's agreement?
Here's the Associated Press:
Obama spokesman Bill Burton on Thursday called public financing "an option that we wanted on the table," but said "there is no pledge" to take the money and the spending limitations that come with it.
Obama told reporters on Friday that it would be "presumptuous of me to say now that I'm locking myself into something when I don't even know if the other side is going to agree to it."
McCain said that if Obama becomes the nominee and decides against taking public money, he might do the same.
"If Senator Obama goes back on his commitment to the American people, then obviously we'd have to rethink our position," McCain said. "Our whole agreement was that we would take public financing if he made that commitment as well. And he signed a piece of paper, I'm told, that made that commitment."
Early in the race, Obama asked the Federal Election Commission whether he could raise general election money during 2007 but return it if he chose to accept the public funds.
Also, in response to a questionnaire in November from the Midwest Democracy Network, a group of nonpartisan government oversight groups, Obama said: "Senator John McCain has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."
Ignore the sentence, "McCain said that if Obama becomes the nominee and decides against taking public money, he might do the same," which the AP helpfully debunks itself a paragraph later by showing that by "might" it actually meant "would."
Is it not clear from the above that Obama's commitment to "aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election" was just a lot of hot air back in the months when "hope" sprung not-so-eternal?
So what? you might say. Just words. Obama would be a fool not to use his own stash to clobber the GOP and win the White House. Very well. But then how does this suggest that his methods are so fundamentally different from those of the once "inevitable" Democratic candidate he held his head up high to defeat?