Since you asked…

Jake Tapper...

"We have created a parallel public financing system where the American people decide if they want to support a campaign they can get on the Internet and finance it, and they will have as much access and influence over the course and direction of our campaign that has traditionally been reserved for the wealthy and the powerful," Obama said.

Do you buy it?

Since you asked, sure.

Of course, I'm hardly a public financing purist. I'm in favor of its most salutary effect, the dispersion of financial influence in politics, but thanks to new tools and technology, public financing is no longer the only, perhaps not the best, means to that end. Obama's success is an example, but only one. The Clinton campaign has raised more money, with more of it coming from small donors as she pushes on, than any Democrat in history, save Barack Obama. The Edwards campaign, too, raised millions in small donor donations. There's been a paradigm shift in political fundraising, one that might have been predictable to a degree when Obama made some earlier commitments to the principle of public financing, but hadn't been proven. Now, the proof is in the reports.

That "parallel public financing system" would be enhanced, I think, by the adoption of Taegan Goddard's suggestion...

For instance, Obama could easily turn a flip-flop story to his advantage by pledging to cap all campaign contributions at $250. Harnessing new voters, his popular brand and the Internet, he could promise to really build a people-based campaign. A million individuals could literally "max out" and feel like they have just as much influence as anyone else.

It's a notion reminiscent of Jerry Brown's 1992 campaign, when Brown adopted a self-imposed limit of $100, with an 800 number as the technological advance that made the campaign accessible to a flood of new contributors who would never have attended a fundraiser or a rally, who didn't appear on anyone's political mailing list. People who could sent $100, but the people who could only offer $20 or $50 felt more empowered as well, knowing that their contribution wasn't being dwarfed by the attendees at some $1000 a plate fat cat fundraiser, or by thousands from PACs and boardrooms. It's a notion whose time seems to have truly come. It's a challenge worth putting to McSame.

Yep, I buy it.