Obama Opts Out
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Senator Obama was met with a hail of denunciations yesterday for his decision to opt out of the “public” — i.e., taxpayer — campaign finance system and go with privately raised money for the general election campaign. The Republican National Committee denounced him. The McCain campaign denounced him. Longtime campaign finance law watchdog Fred Wertheimer denounced him. The president of Common Cause, Joan Claybrook, denounced him.
Well, if no one else is going to stick up for Mr. Obama, let us venture a try. Mr. Wertheimer and Ms. Claybrook we can understand — they’ve long been trying to keep private money out of politics. But the Republican national party and its presumptive nominee? We thought Republicans were supposed to be the ones that thought private enterprise could do better than big-government programs. Why should political finance be any different in this regard than, say health care or education?
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