The McCain campaign must make this hurt
Barack Obama has decided to become the first major party candidate to opt-out of public financing for the presidential election since the system was created in 1976. The decision will give Obama, thank to his huge donor base, a massive money advantage over McCain. Obama is going to be able to flood the airwaves in pretty much any state where he is competitive, meaning that he’ll be able to force McCain to spend time and money defending states that are normally solidly Republican.
There is, though, a potential political downside to this: Obama promised to stay inside the public financing system and committed to trying to find common ground with McCain on an agreement for the public financing of the campaign. The Obama campaign is trying to blame their decision to opt-out on the broken nature of the system and the McCain camp’s lack of interest in reaching a deal. This is a typical political move—the McCain campaign says the Obama campaign never seriously sought a deal—and is designed to limit the political damage of Obama going back on his earlier statement.
Obama is betting that voters won’t be that interested in a process story and that the political damage he suffers will be less than the advantage he gains. But McCain does have an opportunity here. If he can use this incident to paint Obama as just another politician—which he is trying to do—he could tie it into his general attack that Obama is all talk when it comes to changing politics.
To make the charge that Obama has broken his word hurt, McCain is going to need some help. Complaining about the decision too much himself, could be seen as whining. So, he is going to need reform groups and newspaper editorial board to get outraged about it and keep talking about it.