Obama Breaks Pledge, Rejects Public Funding Against McCain

June 19, 2008— -- Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will break his campaign pledge, rejecting public funding for the general election and allowing the Democratic candidate to possibly raise record millions for his White House battle against Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

"You've already changed the way campaigns are funded because you know that's the only way we can truly change how Washington works. And that's the path we will continue in this general election," Obama said in a video message sent to supporters Thursday.

That would be admirable, save for this Obama quote, from November: "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." (He's been the presumptive nominee for less than two weeks, and there was no aggressive pursuit, for the record.)

Maybe it's the curse of the Senate, or the price of running for president, or something particular about these two candidates or this unusual year but to a remarkable degree, the candidates are debating themselves -- whether it's Sen. McCain on taxes, offshore drilling, and his relationship with President Bush, or Sen. Obama on trade, public financing for his campaign, and his relationship with the Bush-Cheney energy bill.

Both have valuable brands at stake. And Obama's suffers a blow Thursday morning, with his decision to abandon his pledge on running with public financing.

And Obamaland is learning anew what's already known: It's great defense up until the moment it's offensive.

That's why two Michigan women in headscarves matter: Obama's appeal to inclusiveness loses a piece of vital credibility every time the promise of a new kind of politics proves hollow -- whether it's the campaign's fault or not.

"Two Muslim women at Barack Obama's rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women's headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate," Politico's Ben Smith reports. "For Obama, the old-fashioned image-making contrasts with his promise to transcend identity politics and to embrace all elements of America."

"It illustrates how the pressures of image-making in a presidential campaign combined with sensitivities over unfounded rumors that Obama is secretly a Muslim can create a sudden storm -- awkwardly in metro Detroit, home to the nation's most influential community of Arab Americans," Chris Christoff and Niraj Warikoo write in the Detroit Free Press.

"[Hebba] Aref, a 25-year-old lawyer, said a member of her group was told by a volunteer that she could not invite Aref because of 'a sensitive political climate,' " per the AP's Jeff Karoub. Obama spokesman Bill Burton, on the actions of campaign volunteers who must have thought they were doing the candidate a favor: "It is offensive and counter to Obama's commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run."

(Flashback 10 weeks: "We need more white people," said the Obama volunteer.)

This is the price for image (and access) control (and hints at one vastly underestimated McCain advantage): The incident "pointed to pitfalls the campaign faces as it moves into the general election and seeks to maintain control of Mr. Obama's image by tightly managing his public appearances," Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny write in The New York Times.

The evidence: "The campaign on Monday barred cameras from a large gathering of African-American civic leaders Mr. Obama attended. It recently refused to provide names of religious figures with whom Mr. Obama met in Chicago and directed some of them to avoid reporters by using a special exit. And on Wednesday, the campaign orchestrated Michelle Obama's appearance on the friendly set of 'The View' and a flattering spread in the pages of Us Weekly."

"Strategists for Mr. Obama, the country's first black nominee, have made it clear that they believe they need to take extra steps to control his image and protect against attack," Rutenberg and Zeleny continue. "But such efforts at times appear to conflict with the candidate's stated desire to be unusually transparent and open, and they have already occasionally put him at loggerheads with news organizations pushing for greater access to him now that he is the presumptive nominee."

Obama adds a new wrinkle to his personal trade wars (was Austan Goolsbee right?). In an interview, "the presumptive Democratic nominee backed off his harshest attacks on the free trade agreement and indicated he didn't want to unilaterally reopen negotiations on NAFTA," Fortune's Nina Easton writes. " 'Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,' he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA 'devastating' and 'a big mistake.' "

And this will fuel the next GOP fire, on national security. (Pick the word you'd highlight in this sentence if you were a Republican operative -- and brace for the full assault.) Obama, on how he would bring Osama bin Laden to justice: "What would be important would be for us to do it in a way that allows the entire world to understand the murderous acts that he's engaged in and not to make him into a martyr."

Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., leads things off for the RNC Thursday morning: "Senator Obama needs to explain why he is arguing that Osama bin Laden should have the habeas rights and privileges of American citizens, and further why bin Laden should be exempt from the death penalty for his vicious attacks."

(That's not what he said -- but good luck trying to reel this one back in.)

That was a whole lot of flags for one little event Wednesday with Obama's new foreign-policy working group: "The meeting was the first major step in a series of actions the Obama campaign plans to take to make sure the Democratic candidate doesn't fall to the same argument that has been particularly damaging to the party since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks," Amy Chozick reports in The Wall Street Journal. "Sen. Obama has no personal military experience and is running against a war hero."

It's an impressive group, but: "At the same time, the Illinois senator's choices for his Senior Working Group on National Security may open him up to more criticism from Republicans that the professed 'change' candidate is relying on familiar Washington insiders or that the failure of these former officials to kill or catch Osama bin Laden before the 9-11 attacks left the nation vulnerable on President Bush's watch," McClatchy's Margaret Talev reports.

This is a tough spot to start from: "Two more Obama advisers acknowledged Wednesday that Osama Bin Laden would be extended Habeas Corpus rights if the al Qaeda leader were brought to Guantanamo Bay," per ABC's Sunlen Miller, Teddy Davis, and James Gerber. "The Obama advisers were quick to add, however, that this reading of Bin Laden's rights, which was established by last week's Supreme Court ruling and would be binding on the next president no matter who wins in November, does not mean that the man who claims credit for the 9/11 terrorist attacks would be released."

But Obama supports the court ruling, and McCain pounces: Obama "doesn't have an understanding of the nature of the threat. And I'll look forward to that debate, quite often, in the future," McCain said Wednesday in Missouri, per ABC's Jake Tapper.

Countered Obama: "Either Senator McCain's campaign doesn't understand what the Court decided, or they are distorting my position."

Rudy Giuliani must have loved that he was able to quote Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., on a McCain campaign conference call. "We could point to many, many examples during the debates where the words 'irresponsible' and 'naive' were applied to Senator Obama, but not by a Republican, but by Hillary Clinton," the former mayor, R-N.Y., said Wednesday.