Friday, June 20, 2008

Back to cover a guy who might be in play here

So the polling says there's hope for Obama in GA after all. Good.

In the meantime, since the news outlets don't seem concerned about what Obama actually "promised" in that questionnaire, I'll post it in its entirety.

here's the question:

"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?"
and here's Obama's response in full:

"Yes. I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests. I introduced public financing legislation in the Illinois State Senate, and am the only 2008 candidate to have sponsored Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) bill to reform the presidential public financing system. In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (r-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."
To call this a "broken promise" is to ignore the last sentence in its entirety, and to read the sentence-before-last without recognizing that McCain's already backed out of public financing during the primary season, presumably ceding any high ground on this issue.

Yet the corporate media last night (that I saw) gleefully referred to Obama as having "gone back on his word."

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posted by hillbilly ragger @ 8:10 AM

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