Why this flip-flop matters

By now we've all heard countless stories on Obama's decision to opt-out of public campaign financing... And countless conservative attacks for being that most dreaded of things- a "flip-flopper"... And countless explanations from be Obama campaign about how he wants to fix a broken system and his campaign relies on small doners.

I call bullshit.

By agreeing to use public financing for their campaigns the candidates agree to something very important to modern political practice- they agree to an equal playing field. Public financing ensures that both candidates will have the same amount of money to spend on their campaign. This year it's a sum of about 90 million dollars. This system was put into action because somewhere along the lines the party traditionally bad at raising money- the Democrats- called foul on the party traditionally good at raising money- the Republicans- for winning campaigns by sheer ability to spend more money.

You can see evidence of this everywhere. Cindy McCain, though herself very rich, can not spend her own money on her husband's campaign because that would be unfair. She hasn't been able to do this since the first time he ran for senate in Arizona. There are limits on what individual donors can give to a campaign. Special interest groups like the healthcare or tobacco lobbies have near unlimited resources and could easily out spend the other candidate by a huge margin and effectively buy the election.

But that's not how we do things here. The American people don't want to be bought. Obama says his campaign relies on "small donors". Bullshit. Do you think Oprah, who managed to bundle $50,000 for Obama is a "small donor"? Do you think paying $30,000 per plate at a fundraising dinner is a small donation? Do you think he's holding special events for Hillary Clinton's moneymakers so that they'll fork over $2,300 each? Don't kid yourself.

I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with these fundraising tactics and I know both parties use them. I'm saying that it's BULLSHIT for Obama to pretend he's doing something noble by opting out of the system. He's not. He plans to buy this election by outspending McCain, just like he used to demonize conservatives for doing.