The ultimate hypocrisy

As it looks more and more likely that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for President, now comes word that he may opt out of public financing for his general election campaign.

Now you must understand, I believe the government has no business in the campaign finance business, either in regulating it or putting up the money for campaigns directly. It should be wide open, complete free enterprise all the way. Raise every nickle you can, and spend all you can raise and borrow.

But that's not the system in America. The presumptive GOP nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, gave us the McCain-Feingold Act, which has unleashed the greatest torrent of unregulated campaign cash in the history of the world. The money was much more tightly controlled before McCain-Feingold, and much more honestly raised. Now the money is all in the hands of shadowy 527 groups with no control by individual campaigns or national parties, and no limits on what they can raise and spend.

This would all be fine, except for far-out leftwingers like Barack Obama, who are the main beneficiaries of McCain-Feingold. Because he has found out that he can raise a great deal more money in small amounts on the internet than federal financing allows, he is throwing off signals that he will forego federal financing.

This is very hypocritical. Obama has proven he can raise hundreds of millions of dollars on the internet. There is nothing wrong with this, except that Obama self-righteously presents himself as holier-than-thou, when in reality, he is just one more garden variety, money-grubbing politician.

If he turns down the federal funding for his campaign, so he can spend millions more, he should not be allowed to go unscathed. Fat chance of that, given the velvet gloves the national media handles him with.

John McCain prefers the federal funds, as he hates fundraising with a passion, but may not be able to afford to keep up with Obama if he's limited to the just the taxpayer's bread.

There is certain justice to both candidates turning down federal funds, which hopefully would accelerate the end of the federal funding of presidential campaigns altogether. But the candidates, and particularly the socialist, big government fan Barack Obama, should not be reclaimed virgins about it--they're grabbing for every buck, and cutting every corner necessary to get every last one.

This is as it should be, but don't lie about what you're really doing.