The issue the McCain campaign wants to press isn't public financing, which is a non-starter as an electoral issue, but rather honesty and consistency, which have always been electoral issues to some degree.  McCain, for all his gaming of the public finance system, did not make a public promise to abide by it (a contingent promise to his bank perhaps).  Had Obama never said anything, opting out wouldn't hurt him in the slightest, but he did, and it puts him in an awkward spot.  My guess is that by itself this won't amount to much, but it could become part of a larger stream of attacks about honesty.

Its's "literal-minded and niggling" to expect that when a politician says he will do X, he will actually do it and not back out as soon as it involves any possible hardship? Anyone can stick to promises when they don't cost anything.

Obama has 1.3 million folks giving him money. That IS public financing.

ryanburke, the question should be why did Obama say he would do public financing, perhaps he did it because he didn't want to be put in the situation where he would need to rely on special interests. How could he know he would be so successful at drawing grassroots support. His intent not to receive special interest money is being upheld, so in fact he is upholding his promise.

Eudoxie's comment, which echoes Obama's trial balloon, is what annoys me about this issue.  If Obama had said "with all these unregulated 527's it can't be done" that is plausible -- it's kinda like his "if we could start from scratch we should do single-payer health care" line.  But "my large number of small contributors is the same thing" argument is condescending and utter bs.

blackton -- the problem is with public financing Obama is guaranteed to be free of special interests.  What happens if during the general election the press reports large special interests are "un-bundling" individual contributions?  What if contributions drop-off without the Hillary boogeyman and media cheerleeding (or whatever other reason you might find more plausible) and Obama doubles/tripples/etc. the "small contributions are ok" level.  I don't think the two things are the same, but what is true is that the "level playing field" rationale for public financing doesn't exist in the current system and probably can't without repealing the First Amendment.  

Blackton, this sentence is downright Clintonian: His intent not to receive special interest money is being upheld, so in fact he is upholding his promise.

Wow. Whatever, I'm pretty sure he said he was going to accept public financing and then when it became clear he was going to raise more money than the $84 m, he changed his mind. This is what politicians do. They change their minds and look for the advantage . However, some politicians are held accountable for it and others have journalists and supporters rationalizing their flip-flops away.

peter, what then is the point of public financing? The whole logic is to remove special interest money buying undue access, otherwise if there is no special interest money then it simply becomes a waste of taxpayer money. Why should my tax dollars support a candidate I don't support without that ostensible reason of removing special interests from the equation entirely?

You are confusing the letter of the law with the spirit of the law. If he is upholding the spirit of the law, that is the reason why the law was written, then why the obsession of holding him to the letter of it, especially when there are more than enough reasons for him not to go the public financing route. Or are you against saving taxpayer dollars?

Realistically lymons concerns are more valid, but that can be resolved by transparency. If Obama starts to drift from that with a wink here or a nod there, then he would be deserving of criticism.