The Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel reports:
Obama’s announcement Thursday that he would become the first candidate to opt out of the public financing program for the general election was a big deal for some of the nation’s most influential newspaper editorial boards, which have long been ardent champions of campaign finance reform and which had thought they’d found a kindred spirit on the issue.
Friday morning, scathing editorials in many top broadsheets characterized Obama’s move as a self-interested flip-flop, dismissed his efforts to cast it as a principled stand and charged that Obama wasn’t living up to the reformer image around which he has crafted his political identity.ÂÂ
This is not the Barack Obama they knew. But you know who is not alienated by the decision? The reporters actually covering the Obama campaign. Indeed, Jake Tapper of ABC News deconstructs Obama’s Friday presser and was “flummoxed that the press conference was so bereft of conflict.” (Tapper’s piece is also worth reading to note how many of Obama’s answers have the gravitas of cotton candy.)
As I noted last Thursday, I have never been a big fan of public financing and  judging from the tax receipts  neither has the general public. However, some may care about the flip-flop and Obama breaking his word. As I have also noted previously, there is a sizable bloc of voters who use issue positions to gain insight into the character of the candidates — and that candidates that are seen as otherwise qualified and competent lose when voters find them lacking in terms of honesty and trust. Those are the people Obama has to worry about alienating.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
The newspapers and editorialists might be shocked for a day or two, but they will quickly go back home to the hopeychangey post-racial post-partisan candidate.
I don’t think that it will cost him any votes to speak of. And obviously, O! feels that he can buy more votes with three hundred million than he will lose by being a hypocrite.
I do think that moves like this and his migration to the center, when taken as a whole, are eventually going to cost him signifigantly. Too many “flip-flops” will make him very top heavy, and make it easier for his keel to crack.
He is making a pretty credible effort to court Republicans. But what a tiny tightrope he must walk. So far, almost all of his foriegn policies have been dragged pretty far to the right. At least as far as his base is concerned. I think many of his moonbats are experiencing a growing sense of horror as he moves farther towards the center.
He is actually saying some pretty rational things lately, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him. What little we have to go on shows him to be left of McGovern, and I would never take the chance that he is being honest about his “moves” to the right. He’s trailing too many lies already.
He hasn’t been honest about very much that I can see, and I think more and more people are catching on to that. We just need to keep pointing it out to people we know, because the press is going to be giving O! one long blowjob from now until the election.
I have no skin in the game and don’t really have an opinion on public financing. What cracks me up though is the huge conflict of interest in newspapers and other media opining on this topic. The more money that is involved in campaigns, the less the pundits and “opinion leaders” are in a position to influence opinion. When the candidate has the cash to bypass the talking heads, it is a direct threat to their status.
I have not seen enough from Obama to trust that he is even his own man. No matter how much he modifies his positions, or his rhetoric, his close associations with the likes of Ayers and Dohrn make me highly suspicious of him. The idea that those types could ever have any direct influence over the POTUS makes me shiver for my children’s future.
The sheer chutzpah of O! is breathtaking. Barry talks about the nasty GOP 527’s but when a reporter tells him there ARE no “rightwing” 527’s right now, he doesn’t blink an eye as he shifts into “but there MIGHT be in the future”
What a fucking piece of work.
Flip-flop is a crappy meme (in some parts of the country people say croppy). Fish on a dock flip-flop but it makes no difference to their situation which side they land on, so long as they are still on the dock. If they manage to make the water though, everything has changed.
Politicians, on the other hand, lie. They (pretty much all) say knowing untruths (wherein they are ALREADY ON both sides of an issue). Human brains are designed specifically to spot this sort of thing in the politician. Flip-flop just doesn’t do the phenomenon justice. Why give the politician a pass when you’ve caught him in a lie? Why not just call it what it is? It isn’t as though we don’t have plenty of accurate synonyms to keep the language interesting that we need to make up yet another one, and an inappropriate one at that. Karl’s use of (lack of) ‘honesty’ or (failure to) ‘trust’ is just the ticket. Let’s quit with the flip-flop. And take note of the journalists when they use it. It’s a water softener.
He is running an ad here in Indiana that if you did not know better, you might think he grew up as a Kansas wheat farmer. Completely ignores the private schools, Hawaii, Indonesia, the Harvard educated Muslim father. He may not be self loathing, but he sure does go to great lengths to conceal his upbringing.
#5 Darleen The sheer chutzpah of O! is breathtaking. Barry talks about the nasty GOP 527’s but when a reporter tells him there ARE no “rightwing†527’s right now, he doesn’t blink an eye as he shifts into “but there MIGHT be in the futureâ€Â
Mark Shields also called O! out on his disnigenuous attempt to blame Republican 527’s for his decision to opt out of public campaign financing:
I believe that the reason the Obama campaign is pushing this “Republican 527’s!” line is that that were so successful at using it to pull the wool over the eyes of the “journalists” at Newsweek.
Of course the honorable Senator Barack Obama should have reversed tack for no other reason than to save the hard working typical U.S. tax payer millions and millions of his/her hard earned dollars. It was the noble, honest and decent thing to do. In doing so the honorable Senator has once again proved he’s more financially responsible than the usual Republican politician.
Now that Senator Obama will be able to outspend his rival by three, four, even five times as much in the battleground states, he’ll effectively be able to quash the indecent lies, libel, slander, and other treasonous forms of communique of the extremist right-wing smear machine.
I’d like to extend my personal “thank you” to Barack Obama for his thoughtful cost-saving gesture. Hard working Americans, no matter their race, creed, religion or party affiliation, will no doubt duly note the honorable Barack Obama’s decency, courage and leadership.
If you still think that thor is NOT parody, you’re not paying attention.
Good one thor.
It’s different when you’re up against whitey. Baracky has kajillions of hours of tv and movies at his back, really, and who’s gonna argue? Not me, for real. I’m no racist.
Thor gets better when he puts some effort into it, that’s true.
Someone with smartness please help. Ok. Baracky said at that press thing that Karl linked that…
but just a few weeks ago I was reading this…
Why come does increasing supply lower prices when you cut a program that’s there to help us in case something terrible happens, but increasing supply doesn’t help lower prices when it would create lots of jobs and reduce our dependency on the foreign oil which was why we decided we better have reserves in the first place.
For real. The Democrats, from the news story thingers I’ve been reading, are the ones that were all like this…
So the Democrat people would rather just pay people not to work instead of opening up drilling so people have jobs and won’t need government handout thingers? It’s almost like they’re war profiteering. It makes me uncomfortable. And I feel confused.
It’s about the lying and dishonesty. OBAMA LIED, CREDIBILITY DIED.
Obama’s campaign is a tissue of lies built on dishonesty about who he is (he’s a leftist not a centrist), what kind of politician he is (he is a race-baiting Chicago-style kneecapping finger-in-wind pol, not a post-racial messianic wunderkind), and who’s on his side (Soros, the moveon.org leftist nutroots and Hollywood lib millionaires, not everyman contributors).
Obama made a commitment in Nov 2007 to use public financing. He broke that promise. Then in June 2007 when breaking his promise he lied about his opponent, he lied about making efforts that were not made. OBAMA LIED, CREDIBILITY DIED.
The shocker is the OBAMEDIA is in the tank for Obama so much that when the curtain is lifted, they pretend not to notice, knowing they are in on the farce. THEY KNOW ITS A SCAM AND DONT CARE. They never cared enough to report on Obama’s real past, they’ve
covered up his gaffes, etc. Obamedia are willing to take a bullet of credibility ‘for the team’.
As for Obama’s … “Well, Sunlen, you and I both know that 527s pop up pretty quickly and have enormous influence and we’ve seen them. There was an ad, one in South Dakota, by Floyd Brown, I think, where it took a speech that I had made extolling faith and made it seem as if I had said that America was a Muslim nation.” … That’s Obama playing the “VRWC” card.
Obama: “What I know having spoken to experts in this field is that we can’t drill our way out of the problems that we’re facing.â€Â
Somebody on the radio the other day said that is like saying you can’t eat your way out of a hunger problem, don’t remember who.
On “Meet the Press”, Senator Biden said that due to the fact that Barry has raised most of his money from people who donated $100 or less, that would mean he has accomplished the truest form of public financing, therefore it meant nothing backing off his pledge. Politicians are hilarious! MTP should be moved to comedy central!
Obama plays fast and loose with the small donor claims
Yep, when there’s a famine the last thing you want to do is plant more crops.
The entire modern economy runs on energy and O! would rather eat the seed corn than wait for a better harvest.
Q: Who has Obama alienated by skipping public financing?
A: No one that matters.
hahaha lolz!
Who has Obama alienated by skipping public financing?
Baracky gets his donations from the same people teh NPR begs for monies. They can’t be one hundred percent pleased I don’t think. It’s a conundrum.
Comment by nishizonoshinji on 6/22 @ 11:27 am #
Q: Who has Obama alienated by skipping public financing?
A: No one that matters.
hahaha lolz!
What, no evolutionary theory on public financing? SHOCKA!!!
Add comedy to the list of things nishfong can’t do.
Q: Who has Obama alienated by skipping public financing?
A: No one that matters.
The damage to Obama will be low, but not zero. Newspaper editorial boards care about public financing. Joe Sixpack does not care. Joe gets low information signaling though. Joe knows that the MSM yearns for O! so badly that O! would almost have to club a baby seal on live television to draw any criticism from them. Somewhere in the back of Joe’s mind he is registering the fact that O! has done something so utterly taboo that even newspaper editorial writers squeeled.
hahaha lolz!
How’s that Warren Christopher in a Speedo poster working out for you?
dur, why would Joe Sixpack possibly care about O! GIVIN 84 mill BACK TO THE MERICAN TAXPAYER????
hahaha
the electorate will applaud it.
dur, why would Joe Sixpack possibly care about O! LYIN TO HIS SUPPORTERS????
um, how much are O!’s programs gonna cost?
dur, why would Joe Sixpack possibly care about O! GIVIN 84 mill BACK TO THE MERICAN TAXPAYER????
I know Joe. Joe may have thought about voting for Obama just to shake things up a bit, but now he’s seeing furrowed brows on the faces of the MSM people who he he has comfortably relied upon to sell him this narrative and his BS detector is starting to beep.