RUSH: Campaign finance reform. That was Orwellian. His flip-flop on campaign finance reform, this was stunning. This was better than Clintonesque. Did you hear what he said? He had promised, he’d had interviews with the Washington Post editorial board, the USA Today, all these Drive-By newspapers, and he promised them that he would support public financing in campaigns. See, that’s all part of campaign finance reform. And the reason the Drive-Bys loved campaign finance reform is it gave them more power. The more people who are proscribed by law from offering opinions or getting into the advocacy race, the more power the Drive-Bys have because it didn’t apply to them, there were no restrictions. So Obama is out there promising them he’s going to go for public financing. And then when Obama realized that public financing will give him 85 million but he could maybe raise 240 million, he said, ‘Ah, to hell with it. I’m going to opt out of the campaign public finance system.’ Well, the media went bonkers for a while, but they’ll get over it, which they’ll duly note that this is a bad thing. I mean Mark Shields said Obama couldn’t pass a lie detector, he’s such a bad liar. They’re really fit to be tied now.
But the way Obama did this was classic. He said essentially, ‘Look at all my small donors. This is in effect public financed campaign. I’ve got so many small donors. I cannot just throw these people away. I just can’t throw ’em to the wolves.’ You see, the moral to the story is that campaign finance reform is great when the Republicans are outraising Democrats, but when campaign finance reform would prevent Democrats from outraising Republicans, then it’s no good, and so Obama, to hell with public campaigns, finance campaigns, and to hell with campaign finance reform. If I got people who want to give me the equivalent of $240 million, I’m going to take it, screw McCain. And of course McCain said, (doing McCain impression) ‘I’m not concerned he lied to me. I’m concerned he lied to the American people.’ Hey, Senator McCain, get used to it. This guy lies to the American people practically every time he opens his mouth. This guy, one of the brilliant things about this guy is he gets away with attacking the political system while being the number one practitioner of the political system. This guy is using politics better than anybody has while at the same time he’s ripping it to shreds, and people are falling for this. They think he’s messiah, he’s reform, he’s change, he’s outside the bubble. This is quintessential politics, and now he’s out there saying the Republicans are going to attack his race.
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RUSH: We’ve got about two more sound bites here with Obama. This is last Thursday evening on his website opting out of public financing of his presidential campaign.
OBAMA: I have an important announcement, and I wanted all of you, the people who built this movement from the bottom up, to hear it first. We’ve made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election. This means we’ll be forgoing more than $80 million in public funds during the final months of this election.
RUSH: Oh, ho-ho-ho, he’s going to go without $80 million, he cares so much, he’s such a reformer, he’s going to go without $80 million, because he’s got $240 in private donations — but this has aggravated the Drive-Bys because he promised them earlier that he was going to do this, but he’s opted out, and they’ll show their outrage for a while, as they have been, but then they’ll get over it. Here’s the second part of the announcement.
OBAMA: It’s not an easy decision, especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections.
RUSH: Oh!
OBAMA: The public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken and we face opponents who have become masters at gaming this broken system.
RUSH: Oh, wow.
OBAMA: John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. We’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.
RUSH: All I can do is laugh. I don’t think it serves any purpose to get outraged here and all. I refuse to be put on defensive by the guy. I’m just not going to do it. I don’t think they have to have a meeting to come up with this. I think this is just in their genes. I think Democrats, these liberals, this is just genetic. I mean, for crying out loud, 527s. We should be so fortunate for this to be true. The fact is that the Democrat liberal 527s dwarf Republican 527s. MoveOn.org and this kind of money, it really isn’t close. And McCain — (laughing) — McCain smears — (laughing) — McCain smears and attacks? Who is McCain smearing and attacking but conservatives? He doesn’t ever smear and attack Democrats, folks. This is outrageous!
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RUSH: Once again, folks, Obama opting out of the public finance system simply means, and especially since he talks about the campaign finance reform system being broken. Who broke it? Members of Congress, the Supreme Court. Who fixed it? All it means is that when the Democrats are raising more money than Republicans, they don’t want campaign finance reform, he’ll opt out of it. And this is part and parcel of what he’s doing, lecturing us not to say things we are not saying. Obama and his boys, they want to run against people who they are not running against, they want us to think it’s another time and place in this country. They’re trying to shut us up saying things we’re not even saying.