Campaign Finance Stuff

Obviously, it's somewhat hypocritical for Barack Obama to have implied that he would accept public financing in the general election and then back out of that once it became clear that he could get more money by not doing so. John McCain, by contrast, is just straightforwardly breaking the law on this issue. Which doesn't make Obama's gambit un-hypocritical, but it shows that if you're voting on the basis of "doesn't play funny games with campaign finance law" you should back Obama.

Clearly there's a larger issue with our campaign finance system here, and the past couple of decades worth of reforms seem to have mostly made things worse rather than better. I think Mark Schmitt's article on "Small Donor Democracy" points the way forward to a better tomorrow.