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Obama, McCain and Campaign Financing

Obama and McCain had at one point both agreed to take public financing in September 2007 if they were their respective party's nominee. At the time, they were both long shots to get their party's nomination, but oddly enough they have both made it to the general election. As for their promise to take public financing, McCain decided to keep his promise while Obama opted to finance his campaign through his own fundraising. In doing so, he became the first ever presidential candidate to forego public financing during the general election. In February 2008, McCain started criticizing Obama for not keeping his promise to take public financing. How legitimate are McCain's accusations? That's what I wanted to discuss.

According to The New York Times campaign finance page, Obama and McCain raised $401m and ~$150m, respectively, prior to earning their party's nomination. The public financing package is $84m over two months (Sept-Nov). For McCain, whose averaged $7.5million in fundraising over the last 20 months, the public financing package looks very appealing. His best month coming into the democratic convention was $27m in July. So, he has every reason to like the public financing package. Obama, however, has averaged $20m/month over the last 20 months and he even had a month where he raised $55m. Given his fundraising prowess, he has every reason to believe he forego the public financing and raise funds himself. His belief was rewarded with amazing numbers in the last two months -- $67m in August and $150m in September.

My point is that McCain's decision to stick to public financing is not purely a question of sticking to promise/principle -- the money looked good to him given his weak fundraising record. To Obama. it didn't.

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