Today Barack Obama announced that he will not be accepting public campaign funds for the remainder of his campaign, citing a ‘broken system’. This will make him the first candidate to refuse public funds for the general election since the program began in 1976. It’s true, most taxpayers do not want to contribute to the fund (that little $3 box you can check on your 1040), with only 8% doing so in 2006. Candidates with many private donors also don’t want to accept matching funds (at least for primaries), as it limits the amount of money they can accept/spend. The system is widely understood to be corrupt, and subverted by PACs and ’soft money’, but I expect the main reason Barack chose not to accept funds was due to his enormous only-partially-tapped donor base, which is probably the best tool against the RNC and the many conservative PACs that boast many times the funds of the DNC. However, John McCain is expected to accept public funds, as it seems no one really wants to give to his campaign. 
For more information on campaign finance, click here.
Filed under: Politics | Tagged: Barack Obama, Election, John McCain
