WP editorial: Mr. Obama's Waffle; Commitment to public financing suddenly looks soft

Mr. Obama's Waffle
His commitment to pursue public financing for the fall campaign suddenly looks soft.
Saturday, February 16, 2008; Page A20

AS RECENTLY as November, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was unequivocal about whether he would agree to take public financing for the general election if his Republican opponent pledged to do the same. "If you are nominated for president in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?" the Midwest Democracy Network asked in a questionnaire. Mr. Obama's answer was clear. "Yes," he wrote. "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

Or maybe not. Mr. Obama deserves credit for obtaining a ruling from the Federal Election Commission that allowed him to raise money for the general election campaign but reserve the right to return the funds if he were to win the nomination and manage to arrange a cease-fire with the other side. That outcome, once improbable, is now within reach. The presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, agreed long ago to Mr. Obama's deal, back when his prospects for securing the nomination seemed slim. Mr. McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, reaffirmed that pledge this week at a lunch with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

But Mr. Obama's campaign, which has been raking in money at an astonishing clip of more than $30 million a month, is starting to hedge. Speaking to the Associated Press, Mr. Obama's spokesman, Bill Burton, downgraded the Obama plan to "something that we pursued with the FEC and it was an option that we wanted on the table and is on the table." Asked about the campaign's earlier position, Mr. Burton said, "No, there is no pledge."...

...this kind of backtracking and parsing isn't what the millions of voters who have been inspired by Mr. Obama are looking for. It's not befitting Mr. Obama's well-earned image as a champion of reform. Instead of waffling, Mr. Obama should be pushing Ms. Clinton to go beyond her spokesman's statements that she would "definitely consider" forgoing public financing....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021503193.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR

Campaign finance is one of those boring, wonky issues that only newspaper editorial boards care about.

this was before it became public knowledge that Ari Fleisher and 'Freedom's Watch", a republican 527, had a war chest of nearly $150,000,000 (150 mil) to be used against who ever the Democratic nominee turns out to be.

In light of this fact, I would be an idiot to allow Obama to even attempt to run against that kind of opposition on public funds.

If he were to take the nomination in light of this information, what would you have him do?