The Schultz Report: Obama’s opt-out may mean the end of public financing for prez races

In the first Schultz Report since political David Schultz’s return from Russia earlier this month, we talk about the growing buzz over Tim Pawlenty’s chances at being the GOP VP pick, review the latest round of ads in the Coleman/Franken US Senate race (disappointing on both sides, in his view), and discuss Barack Obama’s decision to opt out of public financing in his general election campaign.

"There’s no question that he flip-flopped on this issue," notes Schultz. "He did state earlier on that he would opt in to the presidential campaign financing system. But he’s already raised a quarter of a billion dollars, he’s probably going to raise another quarter of a billion dollars, and he’s got enormous strategic financial advantages over McCain.

"He went for conventionality," Schultz continues. "If you’ve got all that money, go for it. Pure political expediency overwhelmed any commitment to principles or values about limiting money in politics. What’s interesting is why he thinks he needs this money. He said it’s to counteract special interest money that will be used to attack him.

"Maybe yes, maybe no. What’s more important here is that one of the things that benefited him from the long race with Clinton is that Barack Obama now has political machinery and organization in all 50 states. McCain doesn’t. Obama is more tested and a better campaigner than he was a few months ago. McCain isn’t, because he hasn’t had to campaign very seriously. So with Obama having this incredible ground organization, he’ll need a lot of money to sustain it. He goes into this election with enormous organizational and financial advantages.

"One can either fault Obama and say he’s a hypocrite [for his public financing reversal], or one can say he’s a conventional politician in the sense that he wants to win, and he’s going to make the choices he needs to make to maximize his chances of victory. But this is probably the end of the presidential public financing system. Obama has shown, with 1.5 million donors, how to raise a lot of money in small donations. I don’t think you’ll ever see a Democrat go back to [public financing]. And Republicans will blame the public financing system if McCain loses in November, and they’ll probably never adhere to it again. So this past week is probably the end of it."

In the matter of Pawlenty, Schultz remains a heretic. "It’s a really fascinating story," he allows, "because if you look at Pawlenty from the point of view of the value he adds to the McCain campaign, I go with my argument that I’ve made for the last few months: Pawlenty makes no sense as a vice-presidential candidate.

"He doesn’t have strong traction with the religious conservatives or the fiscal conservatives, he can’t deliver Minnesota, probably, to the Republicans. And there’s no indication that he can bring critical swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio or Florida over to John McCain.

"If you look at it in terms of all those rational criteria, you say that Pawlenty makes no sense whatsoever. Yet the buzz still continues. The only two conclusions I can come to in looking at this are that a) McCain really does just value loyalty, and he’s willing to put loyalty ahead of everything else, or b) this is just buzz in the sense of trying to keep a lot of names afloat and raise Pawlenty’s profile in the process. But he really doesn’t bring anything that makes him a rational choice for vice-president."

Listen: David Schultz reviews the week in politics (18:20)