Obama officially opted out of public-financing today. I think that second to health-care, campaign financing is the most important undercurrent in American politics. That said, Obama's decision is a good one. Most Americans don't contribute to the public financing program. If Obama had opted in, he would have had about $75-$80 million at his disposal, resulting, oddly, in more of the same old campaign tactics -- swing states getting ALL the attention due to partisan competition and lack of funds to compete in all states.
Obama will now compete in more states, thereby contesting not only swing states but also the new tossups which in prior general elections were states that Republicans could take for granted.
The McCain reaction is strange on a couple of fronts. To begin with, McCain's strategy by constantly trying to get Obama to opt-into public financing was to tie Obama's hands into actually having to do so. This would result in McCain looking like a maverick individualist while still just relying on the RNC and 527's to ultimately get him elected. Second, McCain actually opted into public financing before he opted out...Yea.
During the primaries -- when otherwise McCain would have sat in his bus with no gas, money, and no support for much longer -- he publicly-financed and received a material benefit, only to opt-out in the general, without an FEC agreement.
I'm not really sure why the Obama surrogates aren't hammering this inconsistency to rebuke critics who think McCain is somehow riding high over this.
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Regardless of whether he wins, this campaign is going down in history. This is really unbelievable. The Times write up on this mentioned that 90 percent of his money has come in donations under $100.
To paraphrase H.R. Haldeman: I love this man.
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