We Get Letters: Campaign Finance

Chateau writes:

Here's something to chew on:  When Obama set a precedent for campaign funding by breaking his promise in 2008 to accept public funding for the general election he may have done more than Congress or “reformers” ever could to reduce the impact of SuperPACs in the 2012 general elections. 

The public funding option in 2012 would constrain a campaign to roughly $90 million in total spending, a tiny fraction of the $1 billion the president hopes to raise privately for his campaign.  If the Obama campaign could only spend $90 million we can only imagine how much money would flow into SuperPACs to make up the difference.  Don’t for a minute think that there will be no SuperPACs supporting Obama, but it is the case that we will hear relatively far more directly from the campaign than from 3rd parties this fall (a good thing for our democracy, I believe, to hear more from candidates directly).  The same goes for the GOP, whose candidate I cannot imagine agreeing to public  funding. 

Bottom line:  If you don't like what SuperPACs are doing to election messaging then (have yet one more reason to) be happy that the public funding system has collapsed…