Obama refuses Public Funds

[john5746]

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1828132020080619

 

I guess this could be damaging to Obama, but I think it is a wash, as long as it remains true that Obama gets most of his money in small donations. That is public funding in my opinion.

[iNow]

Hopefully, it's also damaging to special interests running our government.

[bascule]

An interesting side effect of this is that he'll be able to spend an unlimited amount of money in the general election, apparently...

[Phi for All]

"But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system." -Obama

More change?!?! Will it never end? What's this guy up to?

[Pangloss]

Rofl, indeed. Not exactly the kind of change Obama is supposed to represent, especially since he specifically promised not to do this, and going back on a campaign promise (this one before he's even elected!) is the very hallmark of a moden politician. Oh well.

[D H]

I guess this could be damaging to Obama, but I think it is a wash, as long as it remains true that Obama gets most of his money in small donations. That is public funding in my opinion.

This has nothing to do with donations. Obama is rejecting the federal funding supplied to all Presidential candidates since Watergate. On your income tax statement you can opt into this fund by putting an X in a little checkbox. These federal funds come with a lot of restrictions; chief among them is a spending cap. Refusing the federal funds means no spending cap.

[bascule]

he specifically promised not to do this

 

When did he do that? The only reference I'm seeing to it is this:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/us/politics/02fec.html

 

Mr. Obama laid out his proposal last month to the Federal Election Commission, seeking an opinion on its legality. The commissioners formally approved it on Thursday.

 

The manager of Mr. McCain’s campaign, Terry Nelson, said he welcomed the decision.

 

“Should John McCain win the Republican nomination, we will agree to accept public financing in the general election, if the Democratic nominee agrees to do the same,” Mr. Nelson said.

 

A spokesman for Mr. Obama, Bill Burton, said, “We hope that each of the Republican candidates pledges to do the same.”

 

Mr. Burton added that if nominated Mr. Obama would “aggressively pursue an agreement” with whoever was his opponent.

[Pangloss]

Doesn't that support what I said? He said he would take public money, and now he's decided not to. What am I missing here?

[iNow]

I see no promises in that quoted text. Do you? Nor do I see any comments directly from Obama.

[john5746]

This has nothing to do with donations. Obama is rejecting the federal funding supplied to all Presidential candidates since Watergate. On your income tax statement you can opt into this fund by putting an X in a little checkbox. These federal funds come with a lot of restrictions; chief among them is a spending cap. Refusing the federal funds means no spending cap.

 

Yes, I see the box when I do my &^%$#@*! taxes. What I am saying is that if Obama was a billionaire or getting huge sums of money from business or interests, it would look worse than getting small donations from individuals. I think the whole point of this public funding is to stop a few wealthy entities from controlling an election.

 

If Obama had known that he would have the money machine, he would never have agreed to public financing.

[iNow]

Looks like the campaign understands how this is going to play in the blogosphere and has released a video to address it:

 

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/bignews?source=20080619_PF_ND_L1

[bascule]

What am I missing here?

 

Good question! For starters, I'd want to know if McCain actually accepted his agreement.

[Pangloss]

I want to know that as well, but two wrongs don't make a right.

 

You guys can spin the semantics as much as you like, but I can tell you that from a political perspective this story is written and it is playing in Peoria, and the perception is that Obama promised to take the public money and live with the restrictions, and he backed out of that promise.

 

Doesn't change my vote (and it is a vote for Obama at the moment), but that's how I see this issue playing out. Your mileage may vary.

[iNow]

You guys can spin the semantics as much as you like, but I can tell you that from a political perspective this story is written and it is playing in Peoria, and the perception is that Obama promised to take the public money and live with the restrictions, and he backed out of that promise.

 

You have yet to substantiate the assertion that such a promise has been made. Do you have any evidence of that?

[Pangloss]

iNow, the only reason he gave before for not taking the public funds was if McCain didn't take it. Now he's saying he's not going to take it regardless, which clearly constitutes, at the very least, a change of heart of some kind. And it's pretty clear that the "some kind" is the vast amount of money he clearly can raise. Just a few years ago we saw our first billion-dollar presidential campaign. This year I believe we're going to see the Obama campaign alone spend over that amount.

 

Now if you want to stop short of calling that a "promise", that's fine, but that's a semantical argument, and it speaks volumes about your objectivity on this issue.

 

You know, the phrase "it won't play in Peoria" comes to mind. You know, those red-staters we NEED to vote for Obama this fall? They're not buying it. I think I've said this before, but I'm just continuously amazed at the sheer stubbornness of red staters on even the basic viablity and respectability of Obama as a man, much less a candidate. This is just adding fuel to the fire, guy. You think they're going to buy your parsing?

 

Furthermore, it's not just the red staters. My analysis appears to be the prevailing political analysis around the Web today, excepting obviously partisan web sites. A typical example of which may be seen here:

 

Obama to Break Promise, Opt Out of Public Financing for General Election

[iNow]

Yes. I do believe I will stop short of calling that a promise.

 

The issue here is that you DID call it a promise, and I challenged you on that. You could not support your own comments with anything more than semantic spin.

[bascule]

I want to know that as well, but two wrongs don't make a right.

 

In the hypothetical situation that McCain didn't accept his agreement, how is it wrong?

 

You guys can spin the semantics as much as you like [...] the perception is...

 

The perception, regardless of what it may be, actually is spin... what we're stating is merely our own opinion...

 

I care very little for the perception, whatever it may be. I care much more about the facts.

[CDarwin]

This does seem to be the first major issue on which Obama has made a decision on practical terms (I want to spend all this money) rather than on principle. But then, who likes an idealogue?

[john5746]

The Obama kool-aide is very strong.

[Pangloss]

In the hypothetical situation that McCain didn't accept his agreement, how is it wrong?

 

It wouldn't be, but he didn't wait for that to happen, making a decision ahead of time. Personally I respect that, getting out in front of the issue, but as I told iNow it's not going to play in Peoria. What he needs to get out in front of us public perception amongst moderates and centrists and swing voters, and he's got a VERY long way to go in that area.

 

He's got all you die-hard Democrats on board, that's a given. Now it's time to convince us that George Soros won't be telling him what to do. This move is very contrary to that goal.

 

And let's face it, the Huffington Post-crowd support he's getting on this move is not because it's the right thing to do, but because a Democrat did it, and because they want him to have every penny he can possibly have in order to defeat those evil Republicans in the fall.

 

The issue here is that you DID call it a promise, and I challenged you on that. You could not support your own comments with anything more than semantic spin.

 

No, the issue here is that the PUBLIC sees it as a broken promise, and it's hurting him with the very consituency that he's failing to win over at the moment. Stamping your feet over semantics won't win over the red states, folks.

 

"Say, Bubba, can you put that shotgun down for a moment and tell us how you feel about Obama's decision to go with unlimited funding this fall?"

 

"Uh, it sucks. He broke his promise, dint he? <hic>"

 

"But Bubba, don't you realize that he didn't actually make a promise, he just indicated that he MIGHT do that, and it was really his aide speaking anyway?"

 

"Uh, his middle name is Hussein, he must be like a terrorist or something! <hic> Sorry, did you say something?"

 

Yeah, that's gonna work. You guys really have no idea how far he's got to go to win this election.

 

The Obama kool-aide is very strong.

 

It certainly is, and more to the point, moderate swing voters SEE the left drinking that kool-aid and they are not impressed.

Edited June 20, 2008 by Pangloss

[iNow]

No, the issue here is that the PUBLIC sees it as a broken promise, and it's hurting him with the very consituency that he's failing to win over at the moment. Stamping your feet over semantics won't win over the red states, folks.

Okay. You can shift the goal posts, that's fine.

 

Same question. Please substantiate your claim that the "public" sees it as a broken promise.

 

You sound like one of those reporters who starts a story by saying, "According to some people," then says the thing that didn't exist previously... basically making themselves the "some people" previously referenced.

[Pangloss]

It's just my opinion; my analysis as a political observer. I included one media example already; the article from ABC's Jake Tapper headlining it as a broken promise. A googling of "Obama broken promise" yields 297,000 hits and 1667 articles at Google News. That, of course, includes denials that it's a broken promise, but the fact that they have to respond to it on that level means that it's being perceived in that manner. Yeah it's circular reasoning, but that's politics for ya.

 

I've actually been pondering this tangentially. I'm getting the impression that folks here aren't aware of how wary undecided moderate voters are about Obama. I can put together another thread on that subject if you all want. Some of the discussions and comments I've seen that question even his most basic viability as a candidate, from people who are at least ostensibly moderate or undecided (i.e. not obviously Rush Limbaugh fanatics) have been quite surprising to me. Might make for some interesting discussion here as well.

[john5746]

His nose is getting longer.

 

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/the_obama_pledge.html

 

 

This is the argument Obama used, four months later. He wanted to keep the high road while battling Clinton.

 

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_02/013164.php

 

 

From http://donedems.com/2008/06/19/obama-breaks-public-financing-pledge-accuses-mccain/

 

 

This was Obama in 2007 in a written questionnaire:

 

“In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election….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.”

 

This is Obama now:

 

“We’ve made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election,” Obama says in the video, blaming it on the need to combat Republicans, saying “we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. 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.”

 

This flip flop makes Senator Obama the first candidate of a major party to decline public financing, and the spending limits included, since the installation of the system in 1976, post Watergate scandals. McCain, taking the high road and adhering to his pledge, confirmed today that he would be accepting public financing.

 

With a flip flop this big, someone else has to take the fall, and who better than Obama’s political opponent, John McCain.

 

Mr. Obama had pledged to meet with Mr. McCain following the primaries to attempt to work out an agreement on financing. That meeting never took place, aides to Mr. Obama said, because a meeting between lawyers for the two sides was not fruitful. “It became clear to me that there wasn’t any basis for future discussion,” said Robert Bauer, the general counsel for Mr. Obama’s campaign.

 

But the McCain campaign is not going to take this lying down. Jake Tapper at ABC has the scoop:

 

Potter says this account is not factual “This is not true!” Potter says in an email. “I met with Bob Bauer on a different subject…about 10 days ago. During that meeting, he asked what Sen. McCain’s position was on public general election funding, and I said we were for it, and hoped Sen. Obama would participate as well. There was absolutely NO discussion of ‘negotiations’ about participating—the word was never mentioned. What was odd is that Bob Bauer then made the argument to me that neither candidate needed public funding—that Sen. McCain could raise as much for the general election as Sen. Obama ‘within $5 or 10 million.’ I responded that Sen. McCain believed in the general election public funding system, and thought it was good for the country.

 

“So—no discussion of’ ‘negotiations’ and no rejection of negotiations—only a clear statement by me that Sen. McCain hoped both candidates would participate in the system. If they wanted to ‘negotiate,’ they NEVER mentioned it to me…”

 

If Obama thought he was going to pull one over on the McCain campaign, blame them for it, and not be called out, he was horribly mistaken. He’s given McCain a very large stick to beat him with.

 

“Senator Obama’s reversal on public financing is one of a number of reversals that he has taken,” Mr. McCain said in Columbus Junction, Iowa, where he had been touring the floods. “I’m especially disturbed by this decision of Senator Obama’s because he signed his name on a piece of paper, signed his name.”

 

“This election is about a lot of things but it’s also about trust,” he said. “It’s also about whether you can take people’s word.”

 

Now McCain holds the mantle of running a campaign of the people.

[Mr Skeptic]

The real question would be then, would McCain have also gone back on that decision if he later found out he could raise a lot of money? My guess is, he's also a politician. But now he has a chance to score many political points against Obama by sticking with the decision and mocking Obama, which is exactly what he's doing.

 

And yes, that is all unsubstantiated speculation, but I don't trust politicians, sorry.

[john5746]

The real question would be then, would McCain have also gone back on that decision if he later found out he could raise a lot of money? My guess is, he's also a politician. But now he has a chance to score many political points against Obama by sticking with the decision and mocking Obama, which is exactly what he's doing.

 

And yes, that is all unsubstantiated speculation, but I don't trust politicians, sorry.

 

Yep, both McCain and Obama are very similar in that they are presenting themselve as holier than thou, yet become crafty politicians when needed. I think McCain would probably do the same as Obama if he were in the same situation, however, I would give McCain the greater probability of keeping his word, since he has really pushed for this and given his history of being stubborn when faced with difficulty. McCain has true grit, no doubt about that.