Comments on: Barack Obama On The Verge Of Making The Dumbest Decision Of The Election

By: midderpidge

midderpidge — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:22:08 +0000

McCranky gives Obama the perfect out. His public finance shenanigans in the primary make it easy for Obama to simply say “I can’t trust McCranky to abide by the system.” After all, McCranky did not borrow against public funds. His loan was contingent on him opting out of public funds, then if his campaign took off and he became the nominee, the new donations would pay off his loans. If his campaign tanked, he would opt back in to the public financing and use the money to pay back the loan. In other words, Mr. Straight Talk gamed the system.

By: Tx Liberal

Tx Liberal — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:32:10 +0000

I was watching McCain’s eyes as he made that statement. He kept shifting them from side to side and looking around to see if someone was going to catch him in a lie, or at least stretching the hell out of the truth. Somehow I don’t think Obama or anyone in their right mind would fall for this garbage and McCain is just trying to posture himself to get in better with his neocon party members.

By: Kevinyc

Kevinyc — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:50:28 +0000

Would it really be THAT stupid, as Dems could channel $$ throgh MoveOn, etc… ?

By: duros62

duros62 — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:29:08 +0000

More fiscal responsibility from the right, I see.

By: drinkof

drinkof — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:01:09 +0000

At the end of the day, there’s no chance Obama will fall for all this.

What he might do is pivot on all this and use the opportunity to remind everyone that he’s not taking PAC money.

By: Sasha

Sasha — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:46:50 +0000

Ahh, but you have failed to note the critical piece of data. According to The Washington Post today

John McCain’s cash-strapped campaign borrowed $1 million from a Bethesda bank two weeks before the New Hampshire primary by pledging to enter the public financing system if his bid for the presidency faltered, newly disclosed records show.

So Senator McCain is in an even bigger bind than first appears, being contractually bound to end up in the public financing realm. No wonder he is pushing so hard. Senator Obama should out him, clearly and often.

By: C.S.Strowbridge

C.S.Strowbridge — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 07:02:31 +0000

I say crush him fund-raising and then crush him in the election. Then bring up campaign finance reform and see how many Republicans jump at it.

By: Robster

Robster — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 05:41:49 +0000

He better not do it. This is the time to smack McCain and conservatism around.

By: William Burton

William Burton — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 05:18:20 +0000

McCain signed up for public financing in the Primary, and then later backed out when convenient.

Therefore, McCain has proven that he cannot be trusted not to weasel around the spending limits. So Obama should not be expected to stick to the limits himself.

By: riffle

riffle — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:23:31 +0000

I agree, it would be really dumb for him to do it.

I might do something like “Ok, public financing. But the first 527 or other entity that collects a dime for use against this campaign, I’m going to begin collecting money to rebut them. I can’t unilaterally disarm to allow the SwiftBoaters that McCain employs (see http://mediamatters.org/items/200612140001 ) to spend unlimited amounts of cash to lie about me or this campaign.”

Or something like that. It’d be utterly defensible and true, too.