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If Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) secures the Democratic nomination, he should renege on his commitment to accept public matching funds in the general election, Democratic strategists say.
Obama, who is still locked in a nomination battle with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), hedged during a debate Tuesday night when asked whether he would adhere to his pledge that he would enter into such an agreement.
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive GOP nominee, is dealing with his own problems regarding public financing but is calling on Obama to keep his promise. And with Obama raising $36 million in January, it’s not hard to see why some Republicans fear the Illinois senator’s fundraising abilities.
Democratic strategists contacted by The Hill say Obama should not cede that tremendous fundraising advantage, because it would allow McCain to start setting the terms of the race and risk a mismatched fight with outside groups that could enter the fray.
Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist who was a senior adviser to Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) failed bid in 2004, said accepting public funding “may have been the biggest single mistake we made in the Kerry campaign.”
Devine said that by opting into the system, the Kerry campaign operated on the same budget as President Bush’s reelection campaign but for a longer period of time — 13 weeks to Bush’s eight — because of the timing of the conventions.
“We backed ourselves into a terrible corner,” Devine said.
Devine said the Kerry campaign should have gone up with television ads in August, when the campaign was being hit by outside groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Instead, constrained with a finite amount of money, campaign officials felt like they had to wait until October to start airing ads, when they thought more people would be paying attention.
Political analyst Charlie Cook said Obama could use the specter of independent 527 groups to justify declining public financing.
Steve Murphy, a Democratic strategist who worked for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, agreed. He argued that unless Republicans can guarantee that those groups will not be a factor — an agreement they can’t assure — then “Obama should not let them browbeat him into further disadvantaging himself.”
What’s more, Democrats say, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has far outpaced its Democratic counterparts. After January, the RNC reported more than $22 million cash on hand to the Democrats’ $3 million.
Obama ducked the question when asked Tuesday night, saying only that if he is able to secure the nomination, he would then like to sit down with McCain and come up with a system that is fair to both of them.
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