Obama vs. McCain: The money battle
Posted: Friday, June 20, 2008 9:15 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The Washington Post: “Obama will become the first major-party presidential nominee to reject the public funds, passing up nearly $85 million in taxpayer money and instead looking to the 1.5 million donors who contributed to his primary campaign. Given his groundbreaking success in raising money in the Democratic primaries, estimates of how much he could collect for the general-election run to $300 million or more, a sum that would allow the senator from Illinois to compete even in traditionally Republican states.”
VIDEO: Flip-flopping on a prior pledge, Barack Obama says he's not going to take public funding for his White House bid. His opponent, John McCain, blasts the decision. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
“McCain said Thursday that he would accept public financing, meaning he will be restricted to $84.1 million in direct spending in the two months between the Republican convention and election day,” the
Los Angeles Times writes. “He accused Obama of breaking a promise to abide by the federal spending limit. ‘This is a big deal, a big deal,’ McCain said. ‘He has completely reversed himself and gone back, not on his word to me, but the commitment he made to the American people.’”
Bloomberg News notes that Obama’s decision “is likely to produce a cascade of money for unofficial campaign groups that until now have been on the wane… Republicans say the result will be that McCain supporters will be more likely to open their wallets to outside groups akin to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the organization whose efforts damaged Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry four years ago. ‘Obama not taking the public financing provides the catalyst for Republican donors to get increasingly involved,' said Stuart Roy, a one-time aide to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican.”
Good-government groups criticized Obama’s move to opt out of the public financing system, the Washington Post writes. Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook called $85 million ‘plenty of money’ and warned that private funding -- even in the mostly small sums that Obama relies on – ‘comes with the expectations of special access or favors.’” More: “‘Senator Obama knew the circumstances surrounding the presidential general election when he made his public pledge to use the system," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21.”
The editorial pages weren’t too pleased with the decision, either. The Washington Post’s: “Mr. Obama had an opportunity here to demonstrate that he really is a different kind of politician… He made a different choice, and anyone can understand why: He's going to raise a ton of money. Mr. McCain played games with taking federal matching funds for the primaries until it turned out he didn't need them, and he had a four-month head start in the general election while Mr. Obama was still battling for the nomination. Outside groups are going to come after him. He has thousands of small donors along with his big bundlers. And so on. Fine. Politicians do what politicians need to do. But they ought to spare us the self-congratulatory back-patting while they're doing it.”
The New York Times’: “The excitement underpinning Senator Barack Obama’s campaign rests considerably on his evocative vows to depart from self-interested politics. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has come up short of that standard with his decision to reject public spending limitations and opt instead for unlimited private financing in the general election.”
David Brooks said Obama’s move was part of his “Fast Eddie” persona. “All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.”
The take by the AP's Sidoti: "Obama chose winning over his word. The Democrat once made a conditional agreement to accept taxpayer money from the public financing system, and accompanying spending limits, if his Republican opponent did, too. No more. The chance to financially swamp John McCain -- and maneuver for an enormous general election advantage -- proved too great an allure."
The New York Daily News: "Obama Thursday became the candidate of change, all right - he changed his mind on public financing and announced he'll become the first presidential hopeful to fund his bid entirely with private contributions. Obama's decision means he'll pass up $84 million in public grants available to him for the general election, but at the same time he'll likely keep the hefty, three-to-one cash advantage he already has over McCain, experts said."
The New York Post's cover: "Barackflip." Story headline: "Going Barack on his word."
