Breaking a campaign vow, Barack Obama said Thursday he would forgo public funding of his fall campaign, becoming the first candidate since Watergate to rely on private donations.
The reversal could tarnish Obama’s carefully cultivated image as a reformer who has rejected the politics of the past. But it will almost certainly give the Democrat a major financial advantage over his Republican opponent, John McCain.
“It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,” Obama told supporters in an online video. “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.”
The McCain camp was quick to exploit the flip-flop.
“Today, Barack Obama has revealed himself to be just another typical politician who will do and say whatever is most expedient for Barack Obama,” McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said. “His reversal of his promise to participate in the public finance system undermines his call for a new type of politics.”
Obama’s decision means he will not limit himself to the $84 million in public funding that is available to each candidate for the general election in September and October. Instead, Obama will rely on his massive donor base to raise what will likely be several times that amount.
In 2006, Obama warned that “if we’re still getting financed primarily from individual contributions, then those with the most money are still going to have the most influence.”
In November, Obama answered “yes” when filling out a Common Cause questionnaire that asked: “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?” McCain had agreed to forgo private funds.
On Thursday, Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, the group that pushed forthe creation of the public financing system in 1974, opted to go easy on Obama’s reversal.
“We made a decision at the beginning of the election season not to criticize candidates for not participating in a flawed system,” Edgar said. “But Senator Obama did say at one point that he would opt into the system if his opponent did the same, and for that he gets a demerit.”
That rebuke was too mild for Hazelbaker, who said Obama’s reversal “will have far-reaching and extraordinary consequences that will weaken and undermine the public financing system.”
