State of the Union

[OzzyKP]

I didn't watch the speech, but I did catch one particularly shameless bit when I went to get something to eat. Watch as President Obama (the only presidential candidate to ever opt out of the public campaign financing system and the recipient of record amounts of Wall Street campaign donations) bemoans the effect of corporate money on future elections.

As far as I recall pretty much every serious candidate in recent memory opted out of the public financing system.

[Ramo]

He's making an arbitrary distinction between the general election (where public financing is good) and the primary (where it's bad).

[Drake Tungsten]

As far as I recall pretty much every serious candidate in recent memory opted out of the public financing system.

You recall wrongly. And yes, I'm talking about general elections.

edit: I'm also only talking about general elections since 1976, when the system we have for public financing of Presidential elections went into effect. Imagine that!