Obama: Its McCain’s Fault I’m A Liar

The funny thing about Obama is that, for a politician, he's not a very good liar. You pretty much know what is "a whopper" the moment it issues from his mouth. Granted, the MSM does its best and tries to pretend they are credulous, but no one on earth seriously believed Obama was interested in sticking to his pledge to accept public financing for his campaign.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday he'll bypass the federal public financing system in the general election, abandoning an earlier commitment to take the money if his Republican rival did as well.

Obama, who set records raising money in the primary election, will forgo more than $84 million that would have been available to him in the general election. He would be the first candidate to do so since Congress passed 1970s post-Watergate campaign finance laws. Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee in waiting, has taken steps to accept the public funds in the general election.

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.

The public finance system is paid for with the $3 contributions that taxpayers can make to the presidential fund in their tax returns.

"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."

Obama's spin is so weak its laughable. It's the sort of bumbling play you expect from someone running for mayor of a small town, not for the Presidency. (Not that his disciples will care. They think his incompetence is adorable.)

Let's us see how the Republicans are "gaming" the system:

Obama has shattered president campaign fundraising records, raking in more than $265 million as of the end of April. Of that, nearly $10 million was for the general election. McCain, on the other hand had raised nearly $115 million by the end of May.

$150 million dollar advantage for the Democrats. Yeah, the Dems are really behind the eight ball here.

Don't get the wrong idea here. I'm not saying that the MSM isn't above adopting the Obama spin for its stories. They haven't jumped off the Obama bandwagon yet.

But Obama's clear financial advantage over McCain is offset in part by the resources of the Republican National Committee, which has far more money in the bank than the Democratic National Committee. Both national parties can spend money on behalf of the presidential candidates.

As to what those numbers actually are the press will leave you blissfully ignorant. Hmmm…I wonder why?

The party ended April with only $4.4 million in the bank, which amounted to only a tenth of the $40.6 million the Republican National Committee has raised. The RNC and presumed GOP nominee John McCain of Arizona have been raising money together since April through their own joint committee, the McCain Victory 2008 fund.

So, the Republicans have a $36.2 million advantage over the DNC, largely because the Republican nomination process ended early enough to concentrate their fundraising efforts (as Obama and Co. are now doing as well.) Yeah, way to "game" the system.

Besides, even if you add the RNC money in, Team Obama still has a $114 million dollar advantage.  Yeah, that's really "offset" there.

So who exactly is doing the "gaming" here?

Update:

Team Obama is being widely derided for this performace, even by folks who have been more "forgiving" of the chosen one:

"In the past couple of weeks, our campaign counsels met and it was immediately clear that McCain's campaign had no interest in the possibility of an agreement," Burton said. "When asked about the RNC's months of raising and spending for the general election, McCain's campaign could only offer its expectation that the Obama campaign would probably, sooner or later, catch up. And shortly thereafter, Senator McCain signaled to the 527s that they were free to run wild, without objection."

Burton said that while Obama had essentially shut down fundraising for Progressive Media USA, which aspired to be a major anti-McCain media voice, McCain had sent no such clear signal to GOP 527s.

At the same time, no well-funded GOP 527 has yet emerged to attack Obama.

From Donklephant:

Hmmm, that’s pretty weak. I mean, sure, Obama stopped one of these groups, but is he going to stop all of them? I have serious doubts.

It seems Obama couldn't even stick to his first version of the spin on this when he claimed he never said he's accept public financing (in itself a lie), but that all he had said is he would talk to the McCain campaign about the subject.  Turns out he couldn't even manage to top that self lowered bar:

"I met with Bob Bauer on a different subject (a joint panel we had yesterday in Rhode Island sponsored by the National Assoc. of Attys General) about 10 days ago. During that meeting, he asked what Sen. McCain’s position was on public general election funding, and I said we were for it, and hoped Sen. Obama would participate as well. There was absolutely NO discussion of 'negotiations' about participating—the word was never mentioned.  What was odd is that Bob Bauer then made the argument to me that neither candidate needed public funding—that Sen. McCain could raise as much for the general election as Sen. Obama 'within $5 or 10 million.' I responded that Sen. McCain believed in the  general election public funding system, and thought it was good for the country.

“So—no discussion of' 'negotiations' and no rejection of negotiations—only a clear statement by me that Sen. McCain hoped both candidates would participate in the system. If they wanted to 'negotiate,'  they NEVER mentioned it to me…”

Heh.