I’ve supported Obama in this race and I agree that he went back on his word by not aggressively pursuing a public financing agreement with John McCain.
Yes, McCain has not been an angel as regards his fundraising activities so far and it makes a great deal of political sense for Obama to continue to rely on private donations, as he’ll raise so much more money than McCain.
It does however remove a little bit of gloss from that shiny “CHANGE” emblem hanging over Obama campaign HQ.
Supporters can parse words and cite technicalities all they want, but this is the move of an old pol. Not that this alone would keep me from voting for him (I’m under no illusions that Obama is a revolutionary Force for Good), but there’s still a sense of disappointment.
They’re “issue advocacy” groups. It’s an FEC loophole which allows groups to advocate for specific “issues” as long as they don’t explicitly endorse a particular candidate. This allows a campaign to benefit from negative attack ads while pretending to have clean hands and basically serve as a loophole for fundraising.
The most notorious 527 group was probably the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth (who I’m sure you remember).
There are 527 groups now who have already promised a full court swiftboating not only of Barack Obama, but of his wife. The guy resposnibel for the Willie Horton ad is saying he’s going to run commercials accusing Obama of being a Muslim and of lying about it. I think the last straw was that McCain refused to agree (as Obama did) to leave the wives out of it.
They are non-profit political groups that grew out of McCain’s campaign finance legislation. Although contributions to candidates were limited, people not associated with candidates can raise and spend as much money as they want. They can produce ads so long as the ads don’t explicitly say “Vote for X”. You can tell what ads are 527 ads because the candidates will not not announce, “My name is X, and I approve this message”.
I’m of the opinion that you can’t change a thing unless you can first get elected. I agree that he’s going back on the spirit of what he said because he had no idea how much of a money advantage he was going to end up with when he said that, but he would be a fool to be a saint about it, and I don’t the President to be either a fool or a saint.
For some context here (for those who don’t know), Obama’s money has come substantially from very small donors — ten dollars here, twenty dollars there. In fact, the average donation to his campaign has been less than a hundred dollars. Additionally, he accepts no donations from registered lobbyists, period. There is nothing untoward about how he has raised money. In fact, it is public financing at its purest.
Well, maybe because there are so many die-hard Obama supporters insisting that there is nothing to see here, move along. McCain gets pummeled on this board. He gets called names with impunity, but if anyone questions Obama, the die-hards cirlce the wagons and try to spin Obama out of the situation.
It’s all a big nasty game of “how to fuck your opponent.” I don’t see that Obama did anything wrong. He didn’t break his word and he’s using the system to offset the 527 thing that will most certainly be used to crush him.
Very interesting thread. I’m learning a lot about a very confusing subject.
I have no idea of the extent of it but it seems without question from any side that they did meet to talk about it. Someone here suggested that amounted to 40 minutes. Others suggested McCain was as disinterested in working things out as Obama was.
I have no idea of the truth of all that. I would just point out that how much “pursuit” is sufficient is a pretty vague target. I would also suggest that unless McCain can come forward and show they were trying their level best to get together with the Obama campaign but Obama’s people refused to return any calls it makes little sense to point fingers.
Obama said he would pursue an agreement on this and he did. If you want to hang on “yes” not being open to a more nuanced answer then Obama can say he did pursue it and leave it at that.
You are presuming the very disingenuousness you wish to assert. Buggering the question. Why not assume that he said precisely what he wanted to say, which was “Yes, under the following qualifiers”.
You have proven to your own satisfaction that such is a failing on Obamas part, and insisted that those who don’t agree are simply denying your clear reality. Why should he trust McCain to remain true to his word, he’s been all over this map on this? Besides, how do you know he was the one who limited the conversation?
No, you are simply pretending that’s *all * he said, or all we should hear. He wanted us to hear the qualifiers as well, which is why he included them.
Please point to where “Maybe” was an option on the questionnaire.
Please point to evidence that the questionnaire was distributed in paper form, and not an online form, where the options were limited to clicking a bubble next to either ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and choosing neither would not allow you to enter text into a comments field.
Seriously, Mace, your entire argument is based upon an insistence that we take a rigid interpretation of a qualified “yes” on a narrowly structured questionnaire as a solemn, unconditional commitment (for which the qualifiers should, for some unexplained reason, be ignored by the reader).
[De Niro] You are being disingenuous just a lil’ bit [/De Niro]
Out of curiosity, Mace, what do you think about McCain’s failure to respond to the question at all? He had the opportunity to qualify his response, too…and chose to remain silent on the issue. How can Obama’s response possibly be worse than his?
Well then, a meeting is a meeting. So, your “all that happened was a 40 minute meeting with the lawyers from both sides” was an acknowledgment that Obama kept his word.
It helps to understand where John and others are coming form if you realize that Obama was answering the question in such detail in order to score political points given the situation at the time. He could never have forseen that he would fundraise so well, so he saw an opportunity to separate himself from Clinton by portraying himself as a campaign finance reformer. It was not a bad move, I guess. But getting all wonky on it (as he is wont to do, and one of the reasons why I love the man) left him exposed to this.
As I said, I don’t think it’s a huge deal. But he is certainly betraying some calculation here, both when he wrote the survey response, and in his current explanation for not taking public funds.
Eh, he could check either box and then write “Maybe”. Perhaps it would have been more honest to check “no” and then say under what conditions he would change that to a “yes”. Or, not respond at all, and don’t give us a campaign speech instead of a clear answer.
Where did I say that Obama was worse. I’m not talking about McCain-- if you want to start a thread about why he didn’t respond, go ahead. But the fact is, McCain is using public financing in the general election and Obama is not.
How is checking “no” and then saying conditions it would be change to a “yes” any more or less honest then checking “yes” and then saying conditions it would be change to a “no”?
What about you? Why aren’t you giving “clear answers” if clear answer means one word? Why are you writing all these complicated sentences that no one can understand?
Spending the US treasury for personal gain — doubtless his plan for saving Social Security.
You know, I read that to mean that you knew it was an online form, as per your description. But going to the Midwest Democracy Network (the group that created the survey), [url=]here is the original PDF sent to the candidates. I see no evidence that Comments couldn’t be added whether you checked or didn’t check a box-- it’s actually just a line, not a box.
I’ll also note that it appears Obama was the only candidate to fill out the form. Maybe it’s a Midwest thing.
Actually, his statements after saying “yes” were pretty clearly not anything along the lines of “maybe”. He said, to paraphrase, “I’m committed to using public funding, and I hope that my opponent will do the same” and showed major support for the public campaign funding system.
It’s obvious why he’s going back on what he said; he’s making tons more money by private donations from lots of people than he would by using public funding. Good for him! Still, though, you can’t claim that he made anything other than a clear and concise announcement that he was going to use public funding for his presidential campaign. He went back on his word on this, but who cares? If your word can end up being the wrong choice in the end, I sure as hell hope the person with his finger on the red button has the sense to realize it.
For me, this doesn’t affect my opinion of his honesty. Honesty isn’t “keeping your word”. It’s saying what you mean, not being deceitful, and being open and transparent in the way you do things, which he has done better than any candidate I can remember.