Janet, I admire your honesty! And I follow your logic well. I can see where your compassion intercepted your expectations to see follow through on a previous commitment. I agree with all you've said. Your view matches my own point of view. I agree that flipflopping is OK and necessary throughout life. We need leaders who adapt to new information.

On the other hand, as far as justifications go, Obama is not the first to overcome odds or to rise up from a regular attorney role to aspire to be president. Quite a few of our nation's presidents came from humble beginnings. It's true that they were not up against racism, but there were other barriers and problems of their own to overcome in their campaigns and these required money. Bar none, by the time they were each carried into the White House by their most well endowed supporters, those formerly humble servants were firmly positioned in new circles of enormous wealth and responsible to people with limitless power. Some to lesser or greater degrees, of course, depending on how much money they needed or accepted. Because of the money, they were expected to meet the needs of their powerful benefactors.

Money may give Obama a bigger edge in November, but that's not all - it will change the meaning of the whole process, and probably already has. Money is never free, is it? Doesn't it always come with strings attached? Public financing theoretically would have protected the candidate from ending up beholden to the richest and the most powerful.

Obama's campaign is the most well endowed of any in history. He has the largest treasure chest ever possessed by a candidate! In the end, his huge bankroll will serve to raise the bar so much higher, making it so much more expensive for the next candidate from "humble" origins. I don't blame him for wanting the edge that the money will give him. Perhaps it was unavoidable.

Your comment depressed me, Simone. I hate to think that Obama is setting a precedent for people to have even deeper pockets (which completely and definitely leaves out any "average Joe's").

However, I read this article:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-vennocchi_24edi.State.Edition1.38c8fb.html

Though I hate that both of them are being wishy-washy and flip-flopping, I guess the "comfort" is knowing that it's just one of them. Flip-flopping is an equal opportunity employer!

I meant to say the comfort is knowing that it's *not* just one of them.

I agree with the concerns put forward here, and I would absolutely agree that money is a huge problem in our process; I always look for a candidate's position on campaign finance reform. But I just want to add, because I believe it is worth noting, that Obama's success in this campaign was due largely to his strategy of fundraising. The Clinton campaign was presumed to have a tremendous advantage going into the primaries because of their network of deep pocket donors, those who could write a check for the maximum contribution to a particular campaign (about $2,300 per individual)as well as "bundle" lots of other maxed contributions from other deep pocket donors. It worked fine at the beginning, but when their big donors and bundlers maxed out, that's when she started hitting the wall on money. Obama pursued a different strategy, which was to engage an entirely different and relatively shallow-pocketed donor base, made up largely of people who supported his campaign via the internet at around $25-$50 an individual. Thus, Obama enlisted more people that he could keep going back to for more donations because they were not maxed out. And their small donations not only funded the campaign, but it generated a kind of ownership of the campaign. That's what created the finance juggernaut that ultimately prevailed over Clinton at the same time he continued to generate excitement over a campaign with a new message, a new constituency, and a long-term strategy. Clinton's strategy was based on spending big early and wiping out her opposition by Super Tuesday. She was completely unprepared to go the distance financially. Finally, as a practical political matter, when one person maxes out and then "bundles" hundreds of thousands more dollars for a candidate, then that person is going to have influence and face-time if the candidate is elected, helping to shape policy in their own interest. Obama's approach did not rely on such people, but rather on citizens who are invested in his message instead of the personal spoils of a possible victory. Thus, Obama enabled himself to opt out of the public financing system by democratizing the funding process itself, while still keeping himself from being beholden to particular deep pocket donors. Since getting true public financing of elections -- each candidate gets the same amount of money to spend in the same amount of time, all of it from taxpayers -- is probably not even going to get past the Supreme Court, which is committed to the idea that writing a check for a candidate is the same as political speech (see Buckley v. Valeo), then Obama's approach may be the only viable way to shatter the influence of deep pockets and corporate interest in the system. To me, this suggests that Obama's approach was aimed at some kind of authentic change, and also aimed at getting the funds needed to compete for the long haul. Clinton's strategy rang a bit hollow, since she was funded by billionaires while also saying she was in it for the little guy. It was an incoherent message and a short-sighted strategy. Backing up his message of change with vastly democratized funding strategy is what made the difference for Obama. The other thing that made the difference is that he organized caucus states to establish his post-Super Tuesday delegate lead, while Clinton only focused on primary states with lots of voters and strong insider political machines. Obama ended up demonstrating that he was the shrewer and more attentive politician, not simply a great speaker with empty rhetoric.