Obama Will Opt Out Of Public Campaign Financing For Election

Declaring that the public campaign financing system is broken, Democratic presumptive Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama has made the announcement expected for a long time that he would opt out of the public financing system and raise all the money on his own.

He made the announcement in a web video to his supporters, effectively saying it’s now put up or shut up time for supporters to finance his campaign since every single cent of it will now be money he must raise on his own.

Since this conflicts with an earlier pledge, expect Obama’s foes to pounce on it and try to turn it into an issue and refer to it as a flip flop in campaign ads. One problem: campaign process and campaign funding mechanism issues have rarely moved mountains in elections.

Here’s his announcement:

How is this being played in the media? It’s an important question because perceptions over the decision will be a piece in the jigsaw. Obama frames this in terms of the “independent” negative campaigning (and often demonizing) 527 groups that provide plausible deniability for candidates who can look the other way or even decry them. He is also arguing that rejecting public financing means his campaign is totally funded by the American people. Will that play?

Here’s some of the media excerpts:

–The Washington Post:

Sen. Barack Obama has switched course on general-election funding, announcing this morning that he would reject public financing and raise every dime for the fall campaign on his own.

The announcement was widely expected. For months, Obama has eased back from an earlier pledge to “pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election,” warning that it could impose unfair constraints.

The decision means Obama will give up $85 million in public money. But it frees him to raise $300 million or more from the 1.5 million-plus donors in his database, giving him an enormous — almost breathtaking — advantage over Sen. John McCain.

–New York Times:

With his decision, Mr. Obama became the first candidate of a major party to decline public financing — and the spending limits that go with it — since the system was created in 1976, after the Watergate scandals.

Mr. Obama made his announcement in a video message sent to supporters and posted on the Internet. While it was not a surprise — his aides have been hinting that he would take this step for two months — it represented a turnabout from his strong earlier suggestion that he would join the system. Mr. McCain has been a champion of public financing of campaign throughout his career.

….Told on Thursday morning of Mr. Obama’s decision to opt out of public financing, Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain, charged that Mr. Obama had “broken his word.” Mr. Black reacted to the news after a reporter showed him the Obama campaign’s statement on a Blackberry in the lobby of the Chicago hotel where the McCain campaign was staying.

–The BBC:

Democrat Barack Obama has said he will not take public financing, allowing him to raise unlimited private funds in his campaign for the US presidency.

His decision means he will forgo more than $80m (£40.5m) that would have been available for him to fight Republican John McCain for the White House.

…Mr Obama has so far raised an unprecedented $265m (£134.5m) in donations in his presidential race, most of it from small donations given over the internet.

This dwarfs the $115m (£58.3m) Mr McCain has so far raised.

But Mr McCain can draw on the deep pockets of the Republican National Committee, which has far more money than the Democratic National Committee, correspondents say.

–Philadelphia Inquirer:

Barack Obama made it official today: He has decided to forego federal matching funds for the general election, thereby allowing his campaign to raise and spend as much as possible.
By so doing, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee becomes the first candidate to reject public funds for the general election. The current system was created in 1976 in reaction to the Watergate scandal.

–The Wall Street Journal:

The move was widely expected, following the Illinois senator’s record-shattering fundraising during the nominating contest, and his proven ability to raise unprecedented sums from big donors and small Internet donors alike.

Sen. Obama’s Republican opponent, John McCain, has been much less successful at raising money and the move sets up the likelihood of a big mismatch in money heading into the fall campaign. If Sen. McCain stays in the public financing system, as is expected, he would have about $80 million to spend between the Republican nominating convention in September and the Nov. 4 election. Sen. Obama is expected to be able to raise $200 million for that contest,

Meanwhile, reaction to Obama’s move by weblogs is as would be expected: largely along partisan lines.

For instance, the lively blog Red State has this:

I’m just not sure what to say about this. I shouldn’t be shocked, but somehow it does shock me to see how a candidate for POTUS can be so vapid, and yet still lead in every major poll currently.

Does Barack think we are stupid, or are we just stupid? Time will tell, I guess.

I am very depressed about the future and am perilously close to full blown anxiety here. It just seems so simple. How can we even be considering letting this man have the keys to the WH? How? How? How? Why? Why? Why?

And Democratic Strategist blogger Ed Kilgore has this:

You can expect John McCain to leap on this announcement to suggest that Obama’s flip-flopped on public financing, and is playing the game by the old Washington rules. As evidenced by the nature of his announcement, Obama will likely respond by saying (1) his 2007 statement was general and tentative, and he never once promised McCain he’d accept public financing; (2) public financing is a meaningless reform so long as non-regulated dollars–particularly those spent by 527s–still come from special interests; and (3) Obama’s own internet-based and heavily small-dollar donor base represents a “parallel system” of public financing.

This last argument may actually work better with the public than you might initially think. Taxpayer-funded public financing of political campaigns has never been that popular, even though voters do seem to be worried about the influence of lobbyists. That’s one reason regular folks don’t typically share the aversion of “reformers” to self-funded candidates. So a candidate like Obama who has figured out a way to displace special-interest dollars with tons of small donations from plain citizens may well hit something of a sweet spot in terms of his positioning on campaign finance reform. We’ll know soon enough.

You can read more blog reaction to this as it develops (and more is upcoming) by clicking HERE.