Barack Obama Declines Federal Campaign Funds

Senator Obama announced that he will be turning down federal campaign financing for the general election. This will be the first time that federal money has not financed the general election campaign of a major party candidate since the system was set up after Watergate.

I am somewhat disappointed in Senator Obama.

I am not disappointed in the decision as a political one. I supported Hillary and she would have done it in a minute. She would have done so because it was a good political decision. But Hillary is known as a tough and smart politician. She wins political fights by creating clear "good guys" and "bad guys" and hammering away at the "bad guys" until they back down and she wins.

Senator Obama has created a brand for himself that says "I am different". I want to work with everyone. Washington is broken. Trust me.

But he did say that he would only use the $84 million given to him in the general campaign and now he is opting out. It damages his brand somewhat.

But the reality is that this was a smart decision. While he will get hammered for a couple days in the media (and probably longer at FOX) the American people will eventually forget the issue and then we are left with McCain spending $84 million protecting a core group of battleground states with no money to protect from (let alone launch) a 50-state campaign that Howard Dean and Barack Obama intend to run.

Already Obama is running television ads in states like Indiana, North Carolina and North Dakota. What's next, campaign stops in Salt Lake City? If Obama can make states like Virginia, Florida, Georgia and Indiana competitive, McCain is in more trouble than most believe he already is in.

I should be happy. One of my worries during the campaign and my fear of Hillary not getting the nomination was that Obama would be too soft to make some of these hard political decisions and would be too naive in his approach to the campaign. I could not stand for another John Kerry-like campaign. I guess we are starting to see another side of Obama.