That, to me, seems like bad faith and trying to game the system that he helped put in place. Sorry.

our reading of Obama’s pledge is almost the same as yours, except that I take it as a pledge to work toward an agreement to both use public funds, rather than an an agreement to either both use them or both not.

Well, then I guess we’ll just have to disagree and wait and see.

Do you understand how stupid you sound?
What he did do, apparently, was open the possibility of using them as collateral in the future

That is still collateral. A loan contingent on a source of money. Do you think McCain could have gotten the loan without the promise of that money? Right. And the bank will give me a $5 million loan because I intend to win the lottery tomorrow. Oh, they won’t because that is not a source of money.

So once again, given that McCain has shown that he can’t be counted on to abide by any agreement to use public financing, where is the room to negotiate with him?

Incidently, McCain signed a legal binding document PLEDGING and committing him to use public financing for his primary campaign. He broke that pledge and his word. How can anyone trust him.

Really, it’s worse than that even. For the past few years he’s been claiming to have brought real reform to America. It’s the basis for a lot of his reputation. He runs around bragging abut it. He’s reformed the system with his CAMPAIGN FINANCING laws that he can’t even be bothered to abide by. To me that makes him a hypocrite, a liar, a bag of wind, and a schmuck.

On top of that, his response to the FEC shows a complete lack of respect for the law in the same vein that Bush has shown. Do we need four more years of a president that thinks the LAW should not apply to him? Oh, you do.

I would say that Obama has worked toward a public financing of his campaign. What is it now 1 million, 2 million? small donors. No money from lobbyists. I saw a diary where a lobbyist for a non-profit organization got his $100 donation sent back with a polite letter saying “no thanks” from the Obama campaign. Compare that to McCain’s lobbyist-run campaign. Expect the 527s to gear up on behalf of Johnny Straighttalk and his corporate sponsors.

My understanding is that he intends to use public funding for the general election. I will grant him (and Obama) that they should not do this if the other does not.

Do you think that Obama will even discuss it with him, as he pledged? I am willing to wait until Obama is the nominee, as you pointed out(and I’m hoping that he is.)

By the way, our reading of Obama’s pledge is almost the same as yours, except that I take it as a pledge to work toward an agreement to both use public funds, rather than an an agreement to either both use them or both not.

A unilateral action, however disagreeable it may be to you, is very different from an action taken in the context of an agreement between two people.

If McCain presses the issue, Obama can easily answer that McCain has been playing fast and loose with his own campaign financing laws. He’s in violation of his own laws right now. On top of that, Obama can point out that the majority of McCain’s senior campaign staff are lobbyists and that big business already has access to McCain without big donations.

Yeah, they tried that once before. Didn’t work out so good.

If Obama thinks this is not the case, he should say so.
I suppose we’ll just have to wait for the FEC to issue a ruling. Oh, wait…

McCain’s unilateral application and subsequent unilateral withdrawal from the public funding process for the primary has nothing whatsoever to do with the certainty of his following through with an agreement made one-on-one with Obama. Whatever you may think of McCain’s handling of the process, nothing he did is equivalent to saying to Obama, “I agree with you that we will both use public funding,” and then reneging on that agreement. If Obama thinks this is not the case, he should say so.

I think McCain will rightfully continue to press this issue, and Obama will have to come up with some sort of answer sooner or later.

It’s to McCain’s advantage NOW to limit Obama’s fundraising ability, that’s why he wants it. If that were to change, and McCain had the advantage, history shows McCain will abandon the system screwing over Obama.

McCain can make all the noise he wants, but the fact is only an idiot would give up their gun n a standoff when the other party has a history of only pretending to drop his gun.

Maybe better wording would have been, “negotiate toward an agreement.”

We shall see. At any rate, I am really enjoying watching this process unfold.