USA Today: Obama "waffling" on public campaign financing

[Fancifulactor]

The largest newspaper in the nation has expressed its view on public campaign financing, and it didn't have nice things to say about Barack Obama's position:

Sen. Barack Obama sells himself as the candidate of "change," the candidate of reform, the man who'll shake up Washington's business-as-usual mentality.

But before the Illinois Democrat has even gotten on the November ballot, he is waffling on one of his earliest reform pledges: to pursue public financing rather than gather money from high rollers and special interests if he is his party's nominee. (emphasis added by me).

Early last year, Obama's campaign sought and won a ruling from federal election officials to make it easier for candidates to use the public financing system in the general election. Asked three months ago by the Midwest Democracy Network whether he would participate in public financing, Obama wrote: "Yes. ... If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

Sounds straightforward. But now that Obama is raising money at a clip of more than $1 million a day and, if he is the Democratic candidate, could enjoy a large financial advantage over presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, he's adding asterisks and provisos just like, well, some Washington politician.

The newspaper also criticized Hillary Clinton for forgoing public financing.

But at least Hillary did not change her mind, I would say.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/02/our-view-on-cam.html

[sniffa]

1. Welcome back

:hi:

[Fancifulactor]

3. Shooting the messenger

"Shooting the messenger" is a metaphoric phrase used to describe the act of lashing out at the (blameless) bearer of bad news.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_the_messenger

[sniffa]

5. Hey, take the love while you can get it

:hug:

I have a zombie fetish myself, so I'm a bit biased.

[Bucky]

2. Obama does need to spin this hard. He won't do public financing coz McCain is cheating

As per NPR, it came out today that McCain is trying to get out of public financing illegally--potentially exposing himself to a five year jail sentence. That means he'd have to spend his entire first term and part of his second term in prison. Can you imagine how tough it'd be to run cabinet meetings or top secret CIA briefings from behind bars? Don't even get me started on how they'd do state of the unions addresses!

[comradebillyboy]

4. as a Clinton supporter I say Obama would be foolish to

accept public financing, given his demonstrated ability to raise large sums of money from his grassroots supporters. It will give him a huge money advantage in the general, presuming he ends up as the nominee. Its been an important factor in his string of primary victories. And McCain is a cheating hypocrite anyhoo. Obama has been running a very effective campaign so far, why change what looks to be a winning formula. Must admit his campaign strategy and execution have been better than Hillary's, but I still think Hillary would be the better president.

[stillcool]

6. What to think?

WOULD YOU MAKE A "PLEDGE" WITH THIS MAN?
------------------------------
The Post suggests that "McCain may have inadvertently committed himself to entering the public financing system for the remainder of the primary season," which was my original argument, but it's pretty clear that his attitude toward the Federal Election Commission on this question is, "Come and get me!"

One would think that between this dodge and McCain's general flip-flopping about public financing (including voting for the elimination of the entire presidential system in 1995), he would have no credibility on this issue at all. And yet, backed by several of the reform groups and their freinds at the editorial boards, McCain seems to be getting the better of Obama, for the moment, on the issue of whether both would agree to participate in the full public financing system for the general election ($85 million, no private funds). With Obama staffers now describing this as an option for further negotiation, he is being accused of "waffling" on a pledge.

I described this a few weeks ago as a "pledge" to participate, but I should not have. Obama's precise statement was, and has always been, "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." That's an artful statement, and it's not artful in a "meaning of 'is'" sense -- it's exactly the right answer. A commitment to "preserve a publicly financed election" would have to mean much more than whether both participate in the system. It would require some significant agreement about how to handle outside money, 527s, "Swift Boat"-type attack groups, party money, etc., and other factors that have undermined the last two publicly financed elections, from both sides. It is hardly an evasion to describe this as an agreement to be negotiated, rather than a simple pledge.

The side story here is why many of the the "traditional" campaign finance reform advocates and the Times and Post editorial boards still seem so hypnotized by McCain-as-reformer, a pose he adopted for a period that ended years ago, that they cannot call him on his evasion of public funds in the primary, and are happy to be used to echo his first partisan attack in the general election, against someone who, unlike McCain, really has been a remarkably consistent and hard-working supporter of public financing, at both the state and national level.

-- Mark Schmitt

Opposing view: Both sides must agree
I will seek a good faith pact that results in real spending limits.

By Barack Obama

In 2007, shortly after I became a candidate for president, I asked the Federal Election Commission to clear any regulatory obstacles to a publicly funded general election in 2008 with real spending limits. The commission did that. But this cannot happen without the agreement of the parties' eventual nominees. As I have said, I will aggressively pursue such an agreement if I am my party's nominee.

I do not expect that a workable, effective agreement will be reached overnight. The campaign-finance laws are complex, and filled with loopholes that can render meaningless any agreement that is not solidly constructed.

As USA TODAY has critically observed, outside groups have come to spend tens of millions of dollars "independently," while the candidates they favor with these ads "wink and nod" at this activity. There is an even greater risk of this runaway, sham independent spending now that the Supreme Court has wrongly opened the door to more of it in a recent decision.

I propose a meaningful agreement in good faith that results in real spending limits. The candidates will have to commit to discouraging cheating by their supporters; to refusing fundraising help to outside groups; and to limiting their own parties to legal forms of involvement. And the agreement may have to address the amounts that Senator McCain, the presumptive nominee of his party, will spend for the general election while the Democratic primary contest continues.

In l996, an agreement on spending limits was reached by Sen. John Kerry and Gov. William Weld in their Massachusetts Senate contest. They agreed to limits on overall and personal spending and on a mechanism to account for outside spending. The agreement did not accomplish all these candidates hoped, but they believe that it made a substantial difference in controlling outside groups as well as their own spending.

We can have such an agreement this year, and it could hold up. I am committed to seeking such an agreement if that commitment is matched by Senator McCain. When the time comes, we will talk and our commitment will be tested.

I will pass that test, and I hope that the Republican nominee passes his.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is seeking his party's presidential nomination.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/02/opposing-view-3.html#more

[KittyWampus]

7. 1 million small donors IS Public Financing. And he never made a pledge, although he did mention.

reaching an agreement.

[Kokonoe]

8. McCain HAS to use public financing

He borrowed money and used future public campaign financing as collateral to stay in the race. It will break the law not to use public money. Thats why it's so important to tie it to Obama. Now I realize that McCain is a republican so laws may not apply.