From the PBS News Hour, Friday, June 20th:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june08/sbdrilling_06-20.html

  • JUDY WOODRUFF: And to the analysis of Shields and Brooks. That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

    Gentlemen, good to see you both.

    Presidential candidates, both of them this week changed their position on two pretty important things.

    Let's start with Obama, Mark, deciding that he is going to opt out of public financing after saying a year ago that he was going to take public financing for his campaign. What do you make of the argument?

    MARK SHIELDS: Judy, Barack Obama made history this week. He became the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon in 1972 to state that his campaign will be funded totally by private donations with no limits on spending.

    It was a flip-flop of epic proportions. It was one that he could not rationalize or justify. His video was unconvincing. He looked like someone who was being kept as a hostage somewhere he was so absolutely unconvincing in it. It could not have passed a polygraph test.

    I mean, coming up with this bogus argument the Republicans have so much more money -- the Republicans don't have so much more money. He's raised three times as much as John McCain has.

    He has every possible committee, except Republican National Committee, Democrats at the Senate level, congressional level have this lopsided edge over Republicans. They spent three times as much, did Democratic leaning 527s, in the last election as did Republicans.

    So what Obama didn't admit was, up until February of this year, when he told Tim Russert that not only would he aggressively seek an agreement on public financing, that he personally would sit down with John McCain and work it out, then, all of a sudden, they realized that all these small contributions were coming in and he was going to have a financial advantage in the fall against the Republican, and they grabbed it.


And that's what the Democrat panelist had to say !

And...
  • JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, David, would it have helped Obama if he had just come out and said, "Look, I think I'm raising more money, and I'm raising small contributions, and I've just changed my mind?"

    DAVID BROOKS, columnist, New York Times: It would have at least been honest, as opposed to sort of operatic, which that video was. He treated it as if some noble decision to finalize democracy. It was ludicrous.

    I do think it's the low point of the Obama candidacy, and I think it for this reason. His entire career he has put political reform at the center of it. In the Illinois legislature, in the Senate, political reform has been the essence of who he has been. And so for him to betray this, to sell out this issue, what won't he sell out?

    And it really reveals something about his conscience. It reveals that he has this idealistic side, which is a serious policy side, but he also has a tough Machiavellian side, a political hack side, and he wants to win.

    And so, in some ways, this is terrible because it's epic hypocrisy. In some ways, if you want a tough SOB to be your president, he's shown he is a tough S.O.B.


    From here on out, he will be able to spend gobs of money in Georgia, all over the country, and force McCain to campaign with money he doesn't have.





    OBAMA FOREGOES PUBLIC FINANCING


    JUDY WOODRUFF: So does this hurt him politically?

    DAVID BROOKS: Well, I do think it's a window into his conscience. Now, if I was a political consultant without a conscience and I was advising him what to do, I suppose I'd advise him to do this, because, from here on out, he will be able to spend gobs of money in Georgia, all over the country, and force McCain to campaign with money he doesn't have.

    So, in a narrow political sense, it's a smart thing to do.

    JUDY WOODRUFF: Does this register with voters?

    MARK SHIELDS: Well, Judy, put it this way, just to enlarge on David's point. It gives him a tactical advantage in this campaign.

    Right now, Barack Obama's campaign is advertising in Georgia, and North Carolina, in Indiana, in North Dakota, in Colorado, in Georgia, David mentioned, in states -- Virginia -- where the Republicans have nearly owned the states politically and presidentially for the past quarter-century. And it forces John McCain with limited resources to try and defend those states. So it gives you a real big advantage.

    Historically, voters have not said on campaign financing -- they haven't been nearly as interested. It's probably one of the arguments against it on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Voters don't care. It's a reform issue.

    But I really do think that Obama has made this so central to his mission, which is, "I'm going to change Washington, and you can't change Washington until you change the money, until you change the way we raise the money and who we raise it from." And he just basically went back on that.

    And I think, in that sense, it can become a character issue against him, and I think that's potentially a problem.

    John McCain is no plaster saint on this issue. McCain opted into public financing to get a bank loan, private bank loan for his campaign during the primaries, and then, as soon as money started to come in, he pulled out of public financing.

    DAVID BROOKS: But McCain wouldn't have done this. When the chips are down and McCain faced the crucial issue of his career, which was backing the surge, he backed the surge thinking it would cost him the presidency.

    JUDY WOODRUFF: Troops in Iraq.

    DAVID BROOKS: On a core issue of character, I do not believe McCain will bend. He'll bend on all this other stuff he doesn't care about, but Obama did bend on a core issue of his conscience.

    MARK SHIELDS: Well, bending is...

    JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, Obama...

    MARK SHIELDS: ... You tell me what the core issues of character, what they bend on. I mean, John has been quite flexible. And I do think John McCain has got a lot more political capital fighting for campaign finance reform than the Democrats have, because their constituency is far more disposed to it than is John McCain's.