The power of the ordinary individual has never been more pronounced — and sough after — than in this upcoming general election. My vote and my ordinary contribution have never been so consequential. Yours also matter as much.
A little context to the announcement that the Obama campaign will not participate in the public financing system for the general election.
Even though his campaign stood to receive more than $80 million in taxpayer funding for our campaign, the system has been so gamed and exploited by the McCain camp and the Republican National Committee that it is effectively broken.
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John McCain, the Republican National Committee, and their allies in so-called 527 groups that raise and spend unlimited contributions are dedicated to manipulating this broken system to raise as much money as possible — and they’ve proven that they’re very good at it.
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A top McCain adviser told MSNBC earlier this month, “now that we’re in the general election, the RNC money counts, the DNC money counts. So the truth is today, John McCain has more cash on hand and more money than Barack Obama does.”
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In April alone, they raised nearly $45 million. That’s more than our campaign and the Democratic National Committee combined. And that doesn’t include the plans of 527 groups like the one called “Freedom’s Watch,” which has said it will spend as much as $250 million under Karl Rove’s direction to attack and defeat Barack Obama.
To compete, Sen. Obama will continue to rely on ordinary people giving only what they can afford. That’s been the strategy of his campaign from the beginning, and more than 1,500,000 supporters like you have gotten him this far.
We have a historic opportunity to prove that a movement of ordinary people has the power to change the way political campaigns are funded.
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