Right On The Right

Flip. Flop. Barack Obama has changed his mind on public financing for the General Election, making him the first candidate since Watergate to opt out of the public financing system. Here's the story from Yahoo News:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday he’ll bypass the federal public financing system in the general election, abandoning an earlier commitment to take the money if his Republican rival did as well.

Obama, who set records raising money in the primary election, will forgo more than $84 million that would have been available to him in the general election. He would be the first candidate to do so since Congress passed 1970s post-Watergate campaign finance laws. Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee in waiting, has taken steps to accept the public funds in the general election.

Obama officials said they decided to take that route because McCain is already spending privately raised funds toward the general election campaign. Obama has vastly outraised McCain, however, and would likely retain that advantage if McCain accepts the public money.

Obama's campaign is now going to be run entirely on private funds, definately making him the candidate of change. It means his candidacy is even more dependent upon outside influences however, making his anti-lobbyist argument pretty weak. The real reason he won't take public financing is because Howard Dean and the DNC can't keep up with the RNC in fund-raising so while Obama's campaign may be able to match McCain's dollar-for-dollar or better, the organizations backing them could pump out totally different amounts of media. That doesn't make Obama right, that just makes him a hypocrite. To close out, here's some video via Hot Air with Obama from April: