I spoke of this
very thing earlier...
Back when Obama believed he wasn't the frontrunner and wasn't going to be a fundraiser extrordinaire, he went out and told people that he was going to use the the federal financing system and not turn the election into a "whoever has the most money wins" game...
From November of last year...
Presidential Questionnaire
Quote:
If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?
OBAMA: Yes. I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests. I introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and am the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) bill to reform the presidential public financing system. 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. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) 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.
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John McCain agreed to it months ago...
So what does Obama have to say about it NOW?...
Stop Raising Cash
Quote:
IT'S BEEN just a few days since he clinched the Democratic nomination, so Barack Obama deserves some time to fulfill his pledge to "aggressively pursue" an agreement with John McCain to stay within the public financing system for the general election. In case you worry that it would be hard to make do on the paltry $85 million available to each candidate, consider this: That money could be spent in only the 10 weeks between the nominating convention and Election Day. From now until the convention, Mr. Obama -- and Mr. McCain for that matter -- can raise and spend "primary" money in what everyone understands is a general election campaign. So the question for Mr. Obama is whether he should take the public money and use it to run in the closing weeks, as Mr. McCain plans to do, or whether he should become the first candidate since the post-Watergate reforms to run a presidential campaign funded entirely by private donations.
Mr. Obama's campaign now claims that his earlier promise was not to stay within the public financing system if his opponent agreed to do the same, as Mr. McCain has done, but merely to pursue such an agreement.
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Notice how that changed?..."persue an agreement"?...
Let's see his answer to the questionaire again...
Quote:
If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?
OBAMA: Yes.
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So when he wasn't in the lead in cash, he wanted eveyone to stay within the system so he won't be blown out...But now that he can blow someone else out, he does a 180 and pretends that "yes" means something else. (Clintonesque)...
Change you can believe in (until the answers themselves change)...
