A Reformer's Progress

So much moral good was expected from "campaign-finance reform" that Barack Obama's announcement yesterday that he will opt out of public financing for his Presidential run is an historic moment. Senator Obama is the first candidate since the law was passed in the 1970s not to take matching funds for the general election. Even candidate George W. Bush, flush with cash in 2000 and 2004, didn't do that.

The campaign-finance law may have been on life support, but being the one who finally pulled the plug seems to have put the Illinois freshman in a churlish mood. "John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs," he explained. He expects "smears and attacks" from Mr. McCain's "allies" who will "spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations." In fact, they made him do it: "We face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system." Is this the tone of the new postpartisan Obama era? One may wonder. The fact remains that the decision is a large and telling Obama flip-flop. He said early on that he would accept public financing for the general campaign, which runs between the conventions and November's vote. But this was back when he couldn't be sure he would be able to raise so much money by nonpublic means, or what he has since called his "parallel" public financing system.

Mr. Obama argues that his Internet-driven donations have come, not from lobbyists and PACs, but from small individual donors, and so this is sort of like "public" financing. By no coincidence this will give him a huge financial advantage over John McCain, who is expected to accept the public system's $84 million spending limit.

The campaign-finance laws have always been a monument to hypocrisy. Don't, however, expect the system's supporters in the nation's editorial pages or good-government groups to admit that Barack Obama has killed it. More likely they will express "disappointment" with his decision and suggest that he "fix" it – after he's President, most likely with more rules that will help incumbents and the well known or rich. The odds of Mr. McCain's friends from the McCain-Feingold crusade stepping forward to defend him against this Obama gambit are close to zero.

During the primaries, Senator Obama raised some $265 million, more than three times the public limit for the general campaign. The Democratic nominee should have little trouble duplicating this earlier achievement. By some estimates, he may be able to raise up to $500 million, which he hopes to use to drive Mr. McCain over a cliff.

By the way, MoveOn.org Political Action1, an Obama ally not bound by public spending limits, began this week running an anti-McCain TV ad. The ad is co-sponsored by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the big public-employee union. It goes like this:

A young mother sits with her baby son on her lap and says: "Hi, John McCain. This is Alex. And he's my first. . . . John McCain, when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can't have him."

This is the reward Senator McCain gets for becoming the flag-bearer for the modern public-finance crusade. He is going to be hugely outspent, even as he is "attacked" by Mr. Obama, a candidate who entered the campaign as a "reformer" and who will no doubt end a half-billion dollars later proclaiming himself to be even more of a reformer.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal2.