So, Obama was supposed to hope that the republican swiftboaters were going to play nice, even though McCain admitted to being too weak from stopping them?
While you slumber, I'll lie awake nights until he proves to be the Presidential leader we are electing him to be. Breaking his word so cavalierly is, as I said before, disturbing. Even Finegold today said it was a huge mistake.
Well said. Ugh. You haven't read the whole thread. The Repub objective here was to trap Obama into accepting public funds, then hit him with a bunch of 527 (and their ilk) attack ads immediately after the Dem convention. This would require him to either sit back and take it or spend money that he would not have for the closing weeks in refuting it. Either option helps the GOP tremendously. This was the MO with Kerry and this is what they were hoping for with Obama. That Obama had another option and did not take the bait of public financing speaks well of him. He's smart enough to realize he could have money to counter attacks and close out the campaign if he opted for his small donor strategy. It would have been political idiocy for him to do otherwise and would have severely damaged not only his presidential prospects, but the standing of all Dems down the ticket.
I'm far more disturbed by his comment on the FISA vote today, thumbs. Surely you'll agree that the public financing of elections has been broken for several years. The GOP has been driving trucks through the holes in the system, and outspending Democrats by doing so, in every election for a long time. Obama made a strategic decision I heartily agree with. That may not be the problem you have with his decision and I understand that. He was foolish to ever imply, or make a stronger statement, if he did, regarding taking public financing so early in the election cycle. He isn't perfect. Unlike some folks here, I never thought he was. Perfect and politician simply don't go together. Impeach Bush.
Obama's move here is strategically smart. However, his supporters have always told us that he's here to bring a new kind of politics. How sad they must be to realize he's just another politician. Had this not been Obama, the reactions of both sides would be different.
A couple of things here. One, the statement, as has been noted by others, wasn't simply "I will take public financing if my opponent does". Even ignoring the 527's, it still leaves open the questions of DNC and RNC money, both of which is still unlimited and available for the Presidential campaign. So unless you come to an agreement on all of that, then the issue isn't resolved. That said, I agree that he probably didn't try very hard on that. But you're missing the forest for the trees. The reason he was for public financing of campaigns was no to create some kind of fair fight or put the candidates on equal footing. It's because he was and is against special interest money - he's talked about that for years in terms of his support for public financing. He supports it as a means to an end of getting special interests out of the picture. But if he found a way to raise money from small donors and keep special interests out, then he achieved his goal - with or without public financing. So you say he changed his stance for expediency. I would argue that he changed his stance because he found another means to the same end. And in the process was able to give himself a competitive advantage. That's the reason I asked these two questions: Is there anything unethical about not taking public funds (and thereby saving the country $100 million in the process)? Did McCain run his campaign any differently thinking that Obama would take public funds, thus putting McCain at a disadvantage? If either of those happened - that is, he was doing something unethical in his action or McCain relied on Obama's word in his own planning and thus would be at a disadvantage because of Obama's change in stance, then I agree - there's an ethical violation there. But without that, I fail to see the big deal. It's like pledging to build a missile defense system and then learning that a laser defense system could accomplish the same goal cheaper with no cost. Should you be still obligated to build the worse system, or should you go back and change your stance? Except no one railed on Clinton for simply changing her tactics - it was the nature of the specific tactics that were relevant. For example, no one railed on her for changing into a populist over the course of the campaign (people laughed, but no one said it was unfair or bad to do). It was when she made specific types of attacks or other such things that she got criticized. You seem to take criticisms, broaden them by many magnitudes so they cover a whole range of things, and then claim everyone is the same. The problem is that the criticisms are very specific. For example, when Obama supporters said Clinton's team was doing something, you'd come back and say random internet Obama supporters do the same and therefore it's similar - the problem is that it's not. It's very different when a campaign does it.
Obama did send a lawyer to try to work something out - but the reality is that McCain has no way to stop 527's from attacking Obama (and no incentive). So Obama can only offer terms that are reasonable. I think it's reasonable to say if i am going to be able to use this amount, then you should be too but don't try to get around it by having your allies spend money on attacking me too.
If Obama knew the excuses written here all along, then he shouldn't have agreed in principle or put stricter qualifiers on it all while promoting the idea as one part in bringing in a new Washington. How long ago was it that he signed the agreement? Both campaign lawyers negotiated the issue for only 40 minutes, and I doubt the promise was deeply pursued or debated inside the Obama camp with all the money at stake. This doesn't pass the smell test, and Obama should rightfully reap the consequences on reneging from his word. Moneywise, Obama doesn't need 527s while McCain does more than ever. So Obama's point of the dreaded 527s seems like a hollow justification filled in with hindsight because we don't know whether Obama would keep Moveon and other democrat groups like it if he had raised money around McCain's level. If going off public campaign funding is considered a "smart survival play" as some are stating, then it's highly likely Obama would use Moveon's services to counter the Republican attack machine.
For what it's worth - in May, McCain and Obama raised about the same amount of money and ended the month with about the same amount of money on hand. Will be interesting to see June's numbers and if there's a significant bounce from clinching, but May was pretty even. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/20/obama-raises-22-million-i_n_108409.html
Didn't he promise to talk to McCain about this? I think if McCain agreed to stop 527's then they both could agree to public financing. But Obama sent a lawyer over to McCain's camp and he wasn't able to make progress. In any case, I think OBama has to forego public financing. When he's raising his money from small donations - I don't think that undermines his values of a lobbyist free election.
But look at their schedules for that month. Obama was finishing off Hillary in a spate of primaries while McCain was almost exclusively doing fundraisers with a short obligatory public appearance every other day or so. In other words, Obama was coasting to the primary finish line on his small donor financing while McCain was working as hard as he could to raise money from people who could give the max. From here on out, McCain can't keep that kind of schedule and hope to compete. Not to mention that the cash on hand numbers are not really the true measuring stick, since Obama's already spent a bunch. He has a much stronger operation in place throughout all the states and McCain would have to spend significantly more to come close to that level of organization.
i'm going to bold a bunch of this for Deckard. looks like some folks aren't quite as cavalier with their principles as he. [rquoter] Obama alienates the editors By: Kenneth P. Vogel June 21, 2008 10:29 AM EST For most voters, Barack Obama’s shift away from public financing is not as big a deal as the mounting death toll in Iraq, surging gas prices — or even what they’re going to make for dinner tonight. But Obama’s announcement Thursday that he would become the first candidate to opt out of the public financing program for the general election was a big deal for some of the nation’s most influential newspaper editorial boards, which have long been ardent champions of campaign finance reform and which had thought they’d found a kindred spirit on the issue. Friday morning, scathing editorials in many top broadsheets characterized Obama’s move as a self-interested flip-flop, dismissed his efforts to cast it as a principled stand and charged that Obama wasn’t living up to the reformer image around which he has crafted his political identity. The scolding could mark a turning point in what has been, on balance, fawning treatment of Obama, an Illinois Senator and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, on editorial pages. While the influence of editorial boards has diminished as the media has fragmented, they still carry weight with opinion leaders and undecided voters. Obama’s Republican opponent, John McCain, will participate in the public financing system, which this year will provide $84 million in taxpayer funds to candidates who agree to limit their spending to that amount. Obama is expected to raise many times more than that. Many of the same top editorial boards that have criticized McCain’s unwavering support for a long military presence in Iraq have also lauded his efforts to pass stricter campaign finance, ethics and lobbying laws. “The fact that McCain has been willing over the years to take the lead on these issues, when it’s arguably not in his self-interest, is one measure of character that over the years we’ve respected,” said Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post. In deciding which candidates to support, Hiatt told Politico that the Post’s editorial board looks at campaign finance reform issues as “a significant factor, but among many factors that we would consider.” The board viewed Obama’s backtrack on public financing “as an important issue and also as a test of whether he would put principles he said were important to him above political calculation. And he didn’t. That tells us something. It doesn’t tell us everything.” The Post didn’t endorse candidates in the presidential primaries, but by some counts Obama racked up as many as 120 daily newspaper endorsements, compared to around 40 for his main rival, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. McCain racked up more than 30 such endorsements during the Republican primary. Obama’s leadership in passing a yet-to-be-implemented provision requiring disclosure of contributions bundled by lobbyists likely appealed to editorial boards enamored with clean governance issues. Several editorial boards had praised his earlier pledge to take public financing in the general election if his opponent agreed to do the same. Of the editorial boards that opined Friday about his breaking the pledge, most of those that endorsed him during the primary were aggressive in their criticism. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board called the decision “as disappointing as it is disingenuous,” while The Boston Globe’s board wrote that it “deals a body blow … to his own reputation as a reform candidate.” And The Baltimore Sun’s editorial board called it “a major disappointment for those struggling to restrain the pernicious influence of special interests in American politics.” The New York Times’ editorial board, which endorsed Clinton after allegedly leaning toward Obama, wrote that “Obama has come up short” of “his evocative vows to depart from self-interested politics.” Obama attempted a preemptive defense of his new position by arguing that his massive base of small online donors constitute a “parallel public financing,” and that he needed to exit the program to defend himself from the independent spending of 527 groups, long a bugaboo of campaign finance reformers. Many editorial boards, though, have been outright dismissive of this argument. The Washington Post opined that Obama’s “effort to cloak his broken promise in the smug mantle of selfless dedication to the public good is a little hard to take.” And USA Today, which also did not endorse any candidates, said Obama put “expediency over principle,” was “disingenuous about his reasons for opting out of public financing” and proved he’s not a “real reformer.” There was hardly the same level of indignation when McCain came under fire from Democrats for using the promise of receiving public financing in the primary election to secure a loan before deciding not to take the funds. The Post’s Friday editorial asserted that McCain “played games with taking federal matching funds for the primaries until it turned out he didn't need them.” But Hiatt told Politico that he doesn’t count McCain’s move as “in quite the same category” as Obama’s broken pledge. “To be the first candidate to reject public financing in a general campaign, particularly after having argued that that wouldn’t be a good thing, is a fairly significant development,” he said.[/rquoter]
That sounds awfully like GW Bush's justification to start the attack on Baghdad under the 48 hour deadline he gave for Saddam Hussein to step down. Basically saying will I don't see any move on the part of the other party so I'm going to go back on my word and act preemptively.
Except that his exact quote was regarding taking public financing. Maybe it is the forest for the trees but in the end a forest is made up of trees and the exact words matter. Its not unethical what Obama is doing except as a matter of what you consider Obama to be. If you consider Obama to be a new politician who is a straight dealer and sticks by his word over expediency then this is a problem. For years now we've been told that Obama is unlike other politicians. He stand for principles even when that might cost him. I don't think that can be fully said now. Would you consider mocking to be criticism? Anyway people directly criticized Clinton all the time saying she would do anything to win. Heck you said that. Except that much of the criticism didn't need me to broaden it when critics such as yourself already painted with a broad brush by calling her power hungry and untrustworthy. Yes there was specific criticism but much of it was fairly general. You yourself said you just couldn't trust the Clintons overall.
I totally understand and sympathize with your posts. I hope you understand why I don't care that he did this. The primaries are over. Yes, Barack Obama is a politician, which you and I knew long ago. So what! Let us not allow the Democratic Party to be a punching bag for the Right again. Public financing has failed. Only 10% of the public check off the $1.00 contribution to pay for it. 90% do not. Time to move forward, elect a Democratic President, and hopefully attempt to reform the system in a way that works. I don't have much hope for that, but I don't see any logical alternative. Impeach Bush.
