Is this the change the people are asking for? The Barakstar announced today that he will forgo public financing for his campaign. Such a statement made in February of 2007 might have been unique and refreshing but uttered now it only makes the cynical more so and shows the true lack of substance and character of Barack Obama.
Obama officials said they decided to take that route because McCain is already spending privately raised funds toward the general election campaign. Obama has vastly outraised McCain, however, and would likely retain that advantage if McCain accepts the public money.
Obama had no idea what kind of reception he would get on his lighter than air campaign back then so he kept the option in his hip pocket, claiming to support the public financing of campaigns while he does the exact opposite.
“It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,” Obama told supporters in a video message Thursday. “But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system.”
Broken, how? I thought McCain-Feingold fixed all of that. The system as currently structured actually stifles the voices of many by restricting their ability to use their voice (and/or money) within 30 days of the campaign. Later in the day Obama stated that he would need the money to fight “attack ads” from McCain supporters since the good Senator won’t do so himself. This is not only preposterous, it is an outright fabrication made with a straight face. McCain has repeatedly refused to use or support these supposed attacks to his own detriment. He called for the North Carolina Republican Party to pull a primary ad that criticized Obama for his relationship with his former Pastor Jeremiah Wright and has gotten himself sideways with the party for doing so. This is one of the many reasons I can’t stand McCain but it certainly runs contrary to the tripe put out daily by Obama and his campaign. Plain and simple, Obama has become a money raising machine and has come to like it, his new style of campaigning will include spending that money with abandon and filling the air with his fluff filled platitudes at a pace of 3 - 1 over the McCain campaign.
At the moment I’m more annoyed than usual with Barack for forcing me into a half-hearted yet necessary (at least for those who value truth) defense of John McCain. The luster continues to dull on this plastic candidate with each passing week, each stultifying speech and press conference. Flowery words that are devoid of meaning and substance, words with the consistency of cotton candy, sweet but lacking body and essence. Something that goes down good but leaves you hungry for something with some weight to it. Cloud words. Change, hope, opportunity, togetherness. For those with the ability to look beyond the soaring speeches that lead to nowhere there is more familiar political territory in the offing. Cynicism, partisanship, posturing and incompetency.
The “post racial” candidate disses his Muslim supporters in Michigan by refusing to allow them to sit in view of the cameras then blames it on his volunteers. Nonsense, those volunteers didn’t come up with the image idea out of whole cloth. This is a scripted campaign from the get go, it has a terrific ground organization as judged by his success in Iowa and other states yet it tasks two “volunteer” nincompoops to make seating decisions affecting image?
Mr. Togetherness isn’t as squeaky clean as he would like us to believe. Another chink in his armor revealing an empty suit is his refusal to accept even 4 or 5 town hall style debates with McCain. Senator Genuine can’t talk when he gets off the teleprompter or and cannot use the carefully written cloud words provided by the staff. His much publicized gaffes concerning health care and Iraq War funding are evidence of that which I speak. His togetherness message stands in contrast with his close associates known for their propensity for racist ranting. People like Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger and Louis Farrakhan were not just passing acquaintances but 20 year associations. Finally, his claims of bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle have proven to be as without foundation as the rest of him. Look at the record, he has voted in lock step with the liberal party line at every level of career, rarely if ever crossing the aisle yet he criticizes McCain for being a third Bush term. The reason McCain is in hot water with much of the conservative electorate is for his over-willingness to get in bed with the Dems yet Barack wants to claim the upper hand on this issue and the media will probably let him get away with it.
Embrace Barack at your own risk. Grabbing onto the foundations behind his platform is like hugging a smoke filled suit, a little pressure and it crumbles to floor revealing its emptiness.
