Roxxxanne wrote:Obama will rightfully justify rejecting public funding (He never promised that he would accpet public funding despite Russert's false assertations) because he will need to rebut the outrageous lies the 527s and the whisper campaigns come up with.
To check on your claim that he didn't make that pledge, I went back to the New York Times's report of the event at the time. (
You can read it here.)
Three points catch my attention as I read this.
First, Obama clearly wants to lead his audience to believe he would reject public funds.
On February 8, 2008, The New York Times wrote:Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, issued an unusual challenge to his rivals on Wednesday. He proposed a voluntary agreement between the two major party nominees that would limit their fund-raising and spending for the general election.
[...]
In a Feb. 1 filing with the Federal Election Commission that was made public on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said that he, too, would seek enough private donations to remain competitive, but with a twist. He asked the commission if he could begin soliciting private donations with the understanding that he might later return the money to his contributors. If he won the Democratic nomination, he could then strike a deal with the Republican nominee to return their private donations and use only public money for the general election. For 2008, that would limit each general election campaign to about $85 million.
Second, even at the time, Obama hedged his pledge with weasel words that he now can fall back on.
Quote:''Should both major party nominees elect to receive public funding, this would preserve the public financing system, now in danger of collapse, and facilitate the conduct of campaigns freed from any dependence on private fund-raising,'' Mr. Obama's filing said. (emphasis added, T.)
Notice the two signals Obama is sending here: To the ordinary reader, this sentence says that Obama cares deeply about the possible collapse of the public financing system. It signals he making a bold attempt to preserve it. But on top of this message about Obama, the "change" candidate, there is a dog-whistle signal to lawyers: For lawyers, he inserts those two words "both" and "elect", indicating that Obama might elect not to receive public financing after all. They're just two words in a message of about a hundred words -- easily missed by the ordinary reader, but creating a hedge to fall back on later.
Point three: Both McCain and Edwards called Obama's bluff at the time. Here's McCain's reaction:
The New York Times wrote:On Wednesday, a spokesman for Mr. McCain suggested that Mr. Obama was trying to have it both ways, preserving the possibility of taking public money if he could not bring in enough private donations. ''Is he asking for the option of whatever is the higher number?'' Matt David, the spokesman, asked.
... and here's Edwards's
[quote="The New York Times]A spokeswoman for Mr. Edwards, who said this week that he, too, would sidestep the public financing system, scoffed at Mr. Obama's proposal.
'That sounds a little optimistic to us,'' the spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said. ''There are a lot of ifs there.'' At this point, she said, Mr. Edwards ''is not prepared to do that.''[/quote]
My conclusion? I think there are two points to make here, one about the question of the "pledge", and one about the broader story of Obama, the candidate of change and integrity.
Did Obama make a pledge to stay in the public financing system? That depends on whether you evaluate it from the regular reader's or the lawyer's point of view. For an ordinary reader -- and voter, one supposes -- Obama offered the Republican candidate a deal in 2007. The likely Republican candidate, John McCain accepted the deal in 2008. On McCain's acceptance, Obama walks away from the deal. From an ordinary reader's point of view, Obama made a pledge and broke it. (Did I hear Sozobe say: "It's just not Midwestern"?)
From the lawyer's point of view, Obama wanted to have it both ways from the beginning, and his rivals McCain and Edwards rightly called him on it from the beginning.
On the broader point: Is Obama still credible as the candidate of change and integrity? The answer to this question is remarkably similar from both the regular reader's and the lawyer's point of view: To regular readers, there might have been reason hope when Obama made the pledge in 2007, but his bait-and-switch proved their hope wrong. To lawyers, Obama never presented himself as a serious "change" candidate in the first place. From the beginning, he was a hedger who wanted it both ways.
Whichever way one looks at it, the story of Obama, the candidate of change, hope, and integrity reveals itself as a fairytale here. he's just another politician in a suit: not particularly evil, but weaseling, opportunistic, and double-talking just like the rest of them.
I don't expect this to change any minds, however. To people like joefromchicago, blatham, and nimh, this story isn't telling anything they didn't know already. To those in this thread who're in love with Obama like gushing teenagers, no amount of facts will give them a realistic perspective.
