Obama makes the right call, opts out of public financing system

June 19, 2008

This will probably be at least mildly controversial, but I think Barack Obama made the right call this morning by announcing that he would not stay within the public financing system for the general election. The senator made the announcement in a video released earlier today.

A transcript of Obama’s comments is online. He explains that he’ll forgo “more than $80 million in public funds,” despite his support for a “robust system of public financing of elections.” The move became necessary, though, because the existing system is “broken,” and he faces “opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system.” Specifically, Obama explained, “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.”

In a nod to the principle of public financing (and the impetus of minimizing the impact of fat-cat donors), Obama emphasized that his campaign has been “fueled” by small-donor donors. “I’m asking you to try to do something that’s never been done before,” he said. “Declare our independence from a broken system, and run the type of campaign that reflects the grassroots values that have already changed our politics and brought us this far…. So join me, and declare your independence from this broken system and let’s build the first general election campaign that’s truly funded by the American people.”

Not surprisingly, the McCain campaign isn’t happy. “Today, Barack Obama has revealed himself to be just another typical politician who will do and say whatever is most expedient for Barack Obama,” McCain campaign communications director Jill Hazelbaker said in a statement. The McCain camp added that Obama’s move “undermines his call for a new type of politics.”

At the risk of sounding picky, if Obama is doing something that’s never been done before, isn’t that necessarily consistent with “a new type of politics”?

Besides, it’s not like McCain is in a position to condemn from the moral high ground, given the way he played fast and loose (i.e., arguably illegally) with the public financing system during the Republican primaries.

As for Obama, today’s announcement probably won’t cost him too much politically — I doubt very much there are a lot of voters who’ll base their candidate preference on the public-financing system — and should benefit him enormously. Obama will be able to take full advantage of his fundraising edge over McCain, and compete aggressively everywhere. (Marc Ambinder noted, “The potential money gap in the general election is huge — Obama could raise as much as $300m, and the McCain campaign/RNC budget team doesn’t anticipating spending more than $150m.”)

Jonathan Singer had a good item about the impact of Obama’s decision, including this key point that often goes overlooked:

McCain was hoping to tie Obama’s hands behind his back by forcing him to opt into the public financing program — while McCain would still rely heavily on the RNC to finance his efforts. What’s more, with the proliferation of 527 organizations willing to say anything and everything to tar Democrats, not the least of which Obama, had Obama opted into the program he would have been hampered in efforts to rightfully defend himself from smears. But Obama didn’t fall for McCain’s game — he called the bluff, forcing McCain to show that his real priority in trying to force this election into the public financing program was not reform but rather ambition to be elected President.

Quite right. The system doesn’t work. McCain and his far-right allies have already made clear they intend to bend the rules at every available opportunity through independent groups.

Had Obama previously pledged to stay in the system? It looks like it. But Obama saw the landscape — and the coming onslaught from the 527s — and decided it would undermine his campaign too much if he campaigned with one arm tied behind his back. What’s more, he saw John Kerry reluctantly agree to stay within the public-financing system, which ultimately played a role in his defeat.

Under the circumstances, Obama’s decision is undoubtedly the right one.

Many of the Publicans revile McCain-Feingold as a “limitation of free speech.” So they ought to think that Obama’s strategy is just right – doubt that many of them will say so for public consumption however…

  • Better to opt out of the system than abuse the system. On the public financing issue McCain is like a burger–In ‘n Out. In ‘n Out. That’s what it’s all about.

  • Obama is young enough to claim that he’s evolving on the issues. McCain is the dinosaur stuck in the tar pits.

    The only “typical politician” thing about Obama’s speech was that he emphasized the 80 million the public would “save” and not the $400 million Obama would gain.

    Obama, please expose and oppose the telecom deal. Every Bush dog you support now will come back to bite you in the end.

  • In the world of politics, the only way to beat the bully—is to (1) be a bigger bully, or (2) swarm the bully. Clearly, Obama has chosen option (2) for this campaign.

    I look forward to Teh McFool and his RNC bullies trying to beat down millions of people at once. This could turn out to be a “plague of Biblical proportions” for the RNC and its 527 allies. Dare I say that “the GOPers’ chickens are coming home to roost?”

  • Didn’t McCain start the campaign by pledging to abide by spending limits in order to collect public funds, then violate those spending limits, before attacking Obama for not agreeing to abide by spending limits?

    McCain’s position on this issue seems to depend entirely on how his own fundraising efforts are going.

  • Besides, it’s not like McCain is in a position to condemn from the moral high ground, given the way he played fast and loose (i.e., arguably illegally) with the public financing system during the Republican primaries.

    McCain did break the law and is breaking the law.

    Perhaps as the press becomes more disillusioned with him (I can dream) they will pick up this lose thread and start to unravel McCain’s tapestry of lies and flip-flops.

    Also, we should have an empaneled FEC soon, so hopefully McCain’s scam will get resolved.

  • “I look forward to Teh McFool and his RNC bullies trying to beat down millions of people at once.”

    That’s why I think its critical that Obama opted out of public financing. It needs to be clear that he is vastly outpacing McCain through contributions from real, average Americans. The Republicans and their backers need to see the people lined up against them.

  • I was surprised to read that this is the first time a presidential candidate has opted out of public financing. I thought Republican routinely did.

    Now opt out of being co-opted by the Bush dogs and Dem cowards who are passing the Telecom deal.

  • Sad, but sadly necessary. I only hope he’s able to ram through a serious campaign-reform bill once he’s El Presidente.

  • As Halperin says, anything different would have been professional malpractice.

    Money alone isn’t going to win him the election (see the primaries in OH, TX and PA), but it’s critical to have this advantage in order to give us a real shot. Obama has much, much more to deal with in terms of smears than McCain. Now, perhaps, we’re close to a “level playing field.”

  • Good! Thank God sanity prevailed!!!

    Obama going with public financing and letting the thugs shovel money into their 527 slime machine – an operation that would not be countered by the Democrats – would mean the usual Democratic “good government” surrender to the GOP. I am finally tired of the “reformers” – if one studies history, none of their reforms have ever done anything but gut the good guys in terms of ultimate result. Give me the street fighters like my great granduncle, the guys who put FDR, Truman and Kennedy in office. They knew how to win. I’m all in favor of nuclear disarmament, but not unilateral nuclear disarmament.

  • Obama is such a hypocrite. He has the audacity to say he strongly supports public financing of elections at the same time he announces he’s opting out of the system!

  • Obama is such a hypocrite. He has the audacity to say he strongly supports public financing of elections at the same time he announces he’s opting out of the system!

    That’s not hypocritical at all. It’s the same as saying one supports the democratic election of government officials, but will not participate in one that’s rigged to give one side a huge advantage. That’s exactly what the current public financial system is, rigged. It allows unscrupulus people to form 527 group and just basically spread whatever lies they can make up, and with no limit on how much money they can spend. In this kind of system, only those who are willing to lie and smear and defraud stand a chance to win. It’s a good call for Obama to not participate in such a crooked system.

  • Obama does support public financing (since the public is financing his campaign); he has just opted out of the flawed public finance system.

    I’m glad he’s being smart about this; McCain and the Rs have shown that they cannot be trusted (think: McCain promised not to run a negative campaign – uh-huh, sure…). McCain is already in violation of his own law.

  • Hannah beat me to it; from where I sit, it looks to me that Obama *is* using public financing to support his campaign — us, $25 (or whatever) at a time.

  • David Schuster on MSNBC just called Obama “the first candidate since the Watergate years to opt out of public finance” and called it “incredible”, like Obama’s decision was some great atrocity. WTF is Schuster talking about?

  • I’m not sure why it would be preferable to spend just $80,000,000 putting a party’s policies and nominee before the American public versus half a billion.

    It’s time to catapult the MSM and get the message out. That takes money in this country.

  • And it appears to be true that no one has ever opted out of public financing for the general election. Why turning down $80 million in public money is so horrible though is confusing. The system is clearly broken until 527s are held accountable.

  • The wingnutosphere has gone batty battier over this.

    I don’t see what the problem is. The real problem is money flowing from special interests and from fat cats from behind closed doors.

    Obama is taking contribution in small amount from you and me and millions others. There are no special interest or conflicts of interest here. So no need for setting a spending cap and accepting tax payer money.

    With so many people wanting to participate in the process by contributing to Obama, it’d be foolish to turn them away. Obama may not have anticipated this, but it is what it is and he is acting accordingly and appropriately.

  • The wingnutosphere has gone batty battier over this.

    I don’t see what the problem is.

    The problem is that they know Obama’s fundraising prowess is magnificent, while McCain can barely scrape up enough from private donors to buy a Big Mac. The problem is that they just watched Obama telling McCain he’s been pwn3d. The problem is that McCain practically bragged that he wouldn’t tell the GOP 527s to stand down and he just got definitively called on it.

    The bitching you’re hearing from the right (and I’ll preemptively add: from Crazy Mary) is raw, quivering fear (and a pathetic attempt to obscure the fact that McCain’s currently in violation of FEC laws–when the FEC board gets a quorum and rules against McCain, you’re going to hear absolute shrieks of terror from the right).

  • At the risk of sounding picky, if Obama is doing something that’s never been done before, isn’t that necessarily consistent with “a new type of politics”?

    Well, sure, if you insist on using logic or something.

  • I’m sorry to say it but this is a big time flip-flop, you do not promise to take public funding so long as the Republican candidate does, and then take back that promise and expect not to be called out on it.

    Dan Abrams is going to call this one a strike against Obama.

  • The bitching you’re hearing from the right (and I’ll preemptively add: from Crazy Mary) is raw, quivering fear – Maria

    Is Mary really on this blog backing McCain? There are other blogs where you can find Clinton supporters backing McCain, I can’t believe she would be here doing that.

  • Is Mary really on this blog backing McCain?

    Sure. She occasionally claims not to be voting for him, yet she can’t stop exclaiming about how happy and full of “fun” she’s going to be when Obama loses and McCain’s elected. Parse that any way you like; that’s backing McCain.

  • Wow, thanks for your cogent analysis. I had surmised that effectively combating the 527s was somehow a part of his decision, but I’m not versed enough in campaign financing rules to completely understand the motivation. What you say makes sense … but wouldn’t it have been possible to set up enough 527s for Obama to wipe out the smears by the wingnut ones? OTOH, that would probably have really led to a dirty, dirty campaign environment. Which it still could, BTW.

    Now, y’all, get your checkbooks out and your browser over to http://www.barackobama.com and make the 49% majority successful!

  • Actually, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing checks to Obama—AND writing checks to the anti-GOP 527s that are beginning to pop up—AND writing checks to various campaigns for Congressmen, Senators, Governors, State Legislators—right down to county and local races.

    Remember those three little words?

    We, the People.

    We, the People, finally have exactly the right political machine—ourselves—at the precise moment in history—the 2008 general elections—whereby we can take back the Republic from the inept, thieving criminals known as the Bush administration, the GOP, and their “friends.”

    We are not taking a family vacation this year—we’re putting the money where it’ll do more good: replacing Republicans with Democrats.

    And to the guaranteed dismay of the Bush administration and their wet-dreams of my family propping up their heartless, profit-mongering economy, we’re doing the same thing with our stimulus check.

    You may insert the “Bush-administration-gets-teeth-knocked-out-with-great-big-crowbar” soundtrack of your choice now….

  • This is such a dishonest post.

    How can you praise Obama’s move and give such short shrift to his having broken such a major promise to the American people — a promise which, of course, suited him well when he was trying to pretend to be a “change” candidate interested in a new politics, but now is deemed politically inconvenient?

    Steve, you’re just a hack like so many other hacks who’ve lined up behind Obama. Where’s your integrity? Where is any set of underlying principles to which you will hold fast? Why should anyone with a particle of integrity take you seriously anymore?

  • Just to follow up my post with this simple “thought experiment”:

    Imagine if the roles had been reversed, and it had been John McCain who had made a very public declaration that he would opt into public financing, that that promise had tied into an image he was cultivating during the primaries, but that, realizing that he could bring in big Republican bucks in the general election, he was now going back on that pledge.

    Does anybody on God’s good earth imagine that Steve Benen would not now be excoriating McCain for his major broken promise, and filled with outrage over it?

    That, you see, is why Steve Benen has descended into being a hack.

    From now on, whenever Steve Benen makes even the most obvious claim, I and others will be obliged to check every word of it for fairness, including “and” and “the”.

  • What a surprise. Someone is doing something new on their journey to claim the presidency, and their opponents attack them. Why doesn’t McCain talk about those 527 groups more? Let’s all talk about these 527 groups. What a sham all of that is. My generation is going to put capitol hill on a DIET.

  • The main thing Obama has going for him is a clever internet scam, that generates millions in cash flow. This fact alone has been responsible for Obama to dramatically out spend Hillary Clinton, to win the nomination … and to out spend McCain, which might buy him the White House. And, who knows for sure where all that money is actually coming from? It’s a dark day in America, when someone with a thin resume can buy the Presidency of the United States of America.

  • @29-30

    Actually, Obama never promised to enroll in the public financing system, he only said he’d do it if McCain did it as well, and reined in the GOP 527s. Considering that McCain both opted out of the system illegally and let the 527s’ do whatever they want, there’s no skin off my back if he wants to take $80 million of public money or $350 million of public money.

    Oh, and imaginary what-if games would only work if McCain had an image worth destroying, and considering all of his recent flip-flops and “gaffes,” I think Steve’s doing just fine.

    You are of course, free to troll elsewhere.

  • Time and circumstances do in fact change, for everyone including executives and Presidential candidates. If the changing circumstances do not drive change, then we discount ourselves as being capable people. McCain and RNC formed an alliance whereas his campaign would receive a portion of donations; the Obama campaign is not using such a band-aid and is going about their business by making a brave decision to opt out of Public funding and hard work. McCain has muddied his Public funding history by using funding during the primary as collateral to a loan to the campaign. I am amused how righteous the right wing becomes when they, for once, get out foxed.

  • Uff

    Obama lied.
    I wish he hadn’t said those things in March.

    Yes, he won’t lose votes, but the cleaner he can run the prouder I can be to punch his ticket. (“No excuse” absentee voting is available in maryland this year!)

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