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Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is moving on two fronts to make transparency a linchpin of his campaign, opening his fundraisers to reporters and clamping down on the Democratic National Committee’s fundraising from Washington insiders.
The moves, announced on his second full day as the party’s de facto presidential nominee, are designed to drive a campaign message of change versus more of the same, aides said.
His likely opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), closes his fundraisers to the press. Beginning last night, Obama will open all of his fundraisers to at least a pool reporter, who will share the information with the rest of the press corps.
Beginning Thursday, the DNC will no longer accept checks from federal lobbyists or political action committees, mirroring the strict standard Obama adopted for his presidential campaign.
The moves, announced on his second full day as the party’s de facto presidential nominee, are designed to drive a campaign message of change versus more of the same, aides said.
His likely opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), closes his fundraisers to the press. Beginning last night, Obama will open all of his fundraisers to at least a pool reporter, who will share the information with the rest of the press corps.
Beginning Thursday, the DNC will no longer accept checks from federal lobbyists or political action committees, mirroring the strict standard Obama adopted for his presidential campaign.
That part in bold is a shrewd, shrewd move, IMO. I'm sure that following "Bittergate," Obama learned expects that he has to be "on" in every setting, so whether the press is present at his events is probably not a big deal anymore, because he's assuming that everything he says and does could get out. I suspect the next move is to challenge, explicitly or implicitly, McCain to do the same.
Puts McCain in a tough spot. McCain needs money, and Bush can help him deliver that. Problem for him is, being tied to closely to Bush is bad for his image, so he's only doing closed door fundraisers with him.
Once the onus is on McCain to do the same, though, he has three choices:
1. Agree, and have oodles of pictures of Bush with him on the trail
2. Agree, dump Bush, but lose his fundraising ability
3. Decline to agree, and let Obama one-up him on transparency and whatnot
I'd put this on the same page as McCain's challenging Obama to join him in Iraq, which I also thought was a smart political move. Because it's an ongoing thing and not a single photo-op type of event, though, I have a feeling it will be viewed as less "stunt-ish."
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