Daily Scold: Obama's public financing fiasco

Back in the day, say about 8 months ago, before his campaign became a "movement" and his candidacy became inevitable, Barack Obama said he would accept public financing if his opponent did.

He didn't count on his opponent, John McCain, to do the same. Nor did Obama expect his Internet fundraising operation to be as wildly successful as it was. He's got millions of supporters who can each donate up to $2,300 for the primary, followed by another $2,300 for the general election. By his own campaign's estimates, the number of donors shot skyward and has held steady at around 1.5 million. You can do the math yourself and see how easily Obama snagged the $265 million or so he has chilling in the bank right now. Public financing would offer him a much smaller sum of around $84 million.

Not only will Obama become the first presidential candidate to turn down public financing since the system became available, he has clearly gone back on his word. I'd love to see the Obamamites try and rationalize their way out of this one. In fact, I can anticipate the excuses that are homing in, even now, on this post. But I've got a few rebuttals ready...

When asked by the late, great Tim Russert, Obama said he would personally sit down with John McCain to try and work out a fair system to finance their general election campaigns. Only if this effort failed, Obama said, would he opt out of public financing.

Well, by all accounts, not only was there no personal meeting, there wasn't even the "aggressive" effort to work this out that was promised by the Obama campaign. In fact, there was hardly any effort at all, according to McCain's campaign staffers. I certainly wouldn't put it past John McCain or any Republican to twist the facts a little, especially given how juicy the opportunity was here -- to paint Obama as a common politician who went back on his word. But it seems very clear that Obama has been planning to opt out long before the Democratic primary was settled. Just read what he said here, in April.

Anyway, the Obamamites are already rushing to their messiah's defense. The leftists of the liberal blogosphere are stumbling over themselves to deflect attention from Obama's treachery with a torrential downpour of excuses.

Poor, helpless underdog Obama NEEDS this massive stash of cash purely for self-defense, and never mind that his $265 million far eclipses any presidential war chest ever seen in American history. After all, they say, a ton of money will be required to defend Obama against any scurrilous Swiftboat-style attacks, particularly the outrageous ones that accuse him of being a Muslim Manchurian candidate that was sworn in on a copy of the Qu'ran and turned his back on the flag during the pledge of allegiance.

Of course, this neglects the fact that while rabid liberal 527 groups like MoveOn.org have been dumping hundreds of thousands of advertising dollars on the airwaves to lionize Obama and attack McCain, virtually NO right-wing 527 of any prominence (or with any large amount of cash) has stepped it up on behalf of McCain.

Well, sputter the Obamamites, what their savior is doing isn't unethical, because he's getting his money from millions of ordinary Americans. I mean, even if a lot of these Obama supporters gave $500 or $1,000, they are hardly going to expect personal favors from a President Obama, right? After all, public financing was created so that massive corporations wouldn't be able to give millions to a candidate and expect their money's worth of favors once that candidate was elected. Obama won't have to repay any favors for his $265 million, his supporters say.

This is true. But it also sidesteps the real problem: Obama BROKE HIS WORD. He said he would take public financing or he would push for it aggressively and he did neither. I thought this was the guy who would bring transparency back to government and restore the public's trust in their president. Right?

If there is anything I have a problem with, it's dishonest politicians who get caught being dishonest, redhanded. It was stupid, anyway. Everyone knows Obama has an absolute load of cash, it would've been an awfully gutsy and meaningful gesture for him to nobly return the money to the donors and then face McCain on equal terms.

But no, Obama has chosen the most ruthless, Machievellian political maneuver possible -- forcing John McCain to either scramble for large amounts of corporate, big-donor cash, or face being outspent 3 to 1 by Obama. Talk about change. Chump change, that is.