"This is a big deal. He has completely reversed himself and gone back, not on his word to me, but the commitment he made to the American people." [1]

Obama and his campaign however never declared that Obama would take public financing in the general election. What they repeatedly stated was that they would "aggressively pursue" the "option" of a public financing agreement with their Republican opponent that went beyond both parties merely accepting public financing:

• In February '07, when Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton was asked if the Obama campaign was conditionally committing to public financing he said, "We're looking to see if we can preserve the option." [2]

• In February '07, Burton also said that if Obama is nominated that they would "aggressively pursue an agreement" with whoever was his opponent. [3]

• In November '07, Obama wrote in response to a questionnaire: "I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests... If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." [4]

• In February '08, Obama declared: "If I am the nominee, I will make sure our people talk to John McCain’s people to find out if we are willing to abide by the same rules and regulations with respect to the general election going forward. It would be presumptuous of me to start saying now that I am locking into something when I don’t even know if the other side will agree to it.” [5]

• In April '08, Obama declared: "I have promised that I will sit down with John McCain and talk about can we preserve a public system as long as we are taking into account third-party independent expenditures, because what I don't intend... to do is to allow huge amounts of money to be spent by the RNC, the Republican National Committee or by organizations like the Swift Boat organization and just stand there." [6]
  

So whether the Obama campaign flip-flopped on campaign finance in the general election comes down to whether, after securing the Democratic nomination, the Obama campaign "aggressively pursued" a public finance agreement with the McCain campaign. To which the McCain campaign says 'no' while the Obama campaign says 'yes'.

Obama campaign general counsel Robert Bauer says that a 3/4-hour meeting on June 6 with McCain counsel Trevor Potter was mainly about general election campaign financing. Potter maintains however that the meeting "was not part of any negotiation" on the issue. "There was no aggressive pursuit of negotiations with the McCain campaign, there was no pursuit, period, of negotiations with the McCain campaign." [7]

Bauer responded to Potter's assertion in a conference call to reporters:

[The meeting] was mainly devoted to this subject... We ended up talking at length about this public financing issue. I raised some significant issues...

What he simply did was, for all practical purposes, deflect them by telling me that we need not be concerned about them. It seems to me that if we scheduled the discussion, and we put forward our concerns, and we hear nothing back nor anything that could in any way suggest these exchanges were productive, it isn't clear to me that the McCain campaign is in any position to accuse us of failing to negotiate. We put some issues on the table. They disappeared completely for two weeks. Nothing they said could they possibly have reasonably construed to have been encouraging. There wasn't one mention on his part, at any point, of wishing to work with us around some of these concerns... There was absolutely no engagement. There comes a point where they have to take some responsibility here. I think it proves they weren't really prepared to address any of those concerns, which is why we reasonably concluded that any further discussion was fruitless.

I think we did, all things considered... everything that could be considered reasonable in the circumstances. Given that we are now in June, and this can't be something that is for purely political purposes debated with an unwilling party on the other side indefinitely. We're dealing with a candidate whose own gaming of the primary matching funds system, I have to be honest about that. That's how we saw it. That's how the just-fired chairman of the FEC has seen it. We're dealing with somebody who had gamed the system fairly aggressively... has been involved, in and out of that system, as his political circumstances dictated, and he exited from the primary matching funds system just as the nomination became is, so he could embark quickly on a full general election campaign funded entirely with private money, raised both in his own campaign and through the Republican National Committee. Take that to begin with. Then our campaign goes on in the primary for a considerably longer period, so by the time June arrives, he has gone from February to June raising and spending money. And contrary to the lackadaisical pace of events Trevor describes, he's running ads in Ohio, in Pennsylvania, in Iowa, in Michigan, in a number of locations.

Nonetheless, we still called... I raised the concerns that we had that the circumstances had really given us pause here, and I gave him an opportunity to respond, to engage us in some way, and to give us a sense that there was a point, on a compressed calendar, of pursuing the discussion further. And he didn't do anything of the sort... And then they disappeared for two weeks. Over that two-week period, on top of all of that, we find out that they're not planning to do what we've done, which is to try to rein in outside groups that will be friendly to us. In fact, he gave us a contrary signal. I think, in the context, that they haven't lifted a finger to say something constructive on the subject, I don't believe our own initiative can be faulted. [8]

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[1] Salant, Jonathan D. and Woellert, Lorraine. Obama Opts Out of Public Campaign Finance System Bloomberg June 19, 2008

[2] Smith, Ben. Obama spokesman: Public financing just an 'option' Politico February 14, 2008

[3] Kirkpatrick, David D. McCain and Obama in Deal on Public Financing New York Times March 2, 2007

[4] Midwest Democracy Network. Presidential Candidate Questionnaire November 27, 2007

[5] Zeleny, Jeff and Greenhouse, Steven. McCain Calls for Obama to Use Public Financing New York Times February 15, 2008

[6] FOXNews.com. Transcript: Obama on 'FNS' April 27, 2008

[7] Kuhnhenn, Jim. Obama bypasses public money — 1st since Watergate Associated Press June 19, 2008

[8] DeLong, Matthew. Obama Camp Responds on Campaign Finance Washington Independent June 19, 2008