One of the biggest concerns going into the general election for Republicans has to be the massive discrepancy between the amount of money raised by Democratic candidates in the primaries – especially Barack Obama – and the amounts raised by the GOP.

For John McCain who was broke just a few short months ago, this is a matter of life and death. With a massive donor base that Obama will be able to tap anew for the general election campaign, it is quite possible that the Illinois senator would be able to double the amount raised by McCain over the course of the race. Obama corralled more than 135,000 individual donors alone in 2008 so far. This puts him well over 200,000 contributors he can call on.

How then, can McCain neutralize this huge advantage? It seems that back when McCain was a frontrunner in early 2007, he made a pledge to accept federal financing for the general election if the Democratic candidate did the same. Apparently, Barack Obama took him up on that challenge at the time. Here’s the New York Times from 3/2/07:

Senator John McCain joined Senator Barack Obama on Thursday in promising to accept a novel fund-raising truce if each man wins his party’s presidential nomination.

“Should John McCain win the Republican nomination, we will agree to accept public financing in the general election, if the Democratic nominee agrees to do the same,” Mr. Nelson [then McCain’s campaign manager] said.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama, Bill Burton, said, “We hope that each of the Republican candidates pledges to do the same.”

Mr. Burton added that if nominated Mr. Obama would “aggressively pursue an agreement” with whoever was his opponent.

Sounds cut and dried, doesn’t it? If McCain and Obama square off in the general election, both will take public financing, right?

Not so fast, says the Agent of Change in politics:

Obama’s campaign is backing away from suggestions that the Illinois senator would publicly finance his campaign in the general election, if he’s the nominee, and referring to public financing as an “option” — not as the “pledge” McCain’s campaign claims Obama made.

[snip]

I asked Burton again today if this was a “pledge,” and he repeated that it’s an “option.”

“The only reason this is an option is because we pursued the decision from the FEC. As the Clinton campaign continues to remind you, Obama is not the nominee, but this is a question we will address when he is,” he said in response to Davis’ remark.

For McCain, this has left an opening that you can drive a truck through. And he has been savaging Obama about breaking his “pledge” all week:

Hammering Senator Barack Obama for a fourth straight day, Senator John McCain said here on Friday that he expects Senator Obama to abide by his pledge use public financing for his general election if Mr. McCain does so as well.

“It was very clear to me that Senator Obama had agreed to having public financing of the general election campaign if I did the same thing,” he said after a town hall meeting here. “I made the commitment to the American people that if I was the nominee of my party, I would go the route of public financing. I expect Senator Obama to keep his word to the American people as well.”

Asked if he would use public financing even if Mr. Obama did not, he said: “If Senator Obama goes back on his commitment to the American people, then obviously we have to rethink our position. Our whole agreement was we would take public financing if he made that commitment as well. And he signed a piece of paper, I’m told, that made that commitment.”

Predictably, there are some on the left who have hit the ceiling and are beside themselves that Obama would give up an election winning advantage:

For the first time ever, the Democratic party is outraising the Republican party. The party and its candidate will have the resources to compete on a huge playing field, not just shoring up its blue state base and courting voters in swing states, but there will also be the ability to truly compete in those red states the GOP is holding on to by a thread.

This election could be the one that knocks back conservatism for ten years to a generation.

Don’t give up that advantage. This is the equivalent of the opposing coach asking the Bulls to bench Michael Jordan in his prime.

Kos decided to do a little whistling past the graveyard:

Look, no one gives a shit if Obama takes public financing or not. The Edwards campaign thought they’d get brownie points for opting in during the primary, and other than me criticizing them for it, they heard crickets. And that was among Democrats, who supposedly care about this sort of thing.

This is such a process story with zero relevance to the public that there’s no benefit to be gained by taking public financing—unless you can’t raise it as fast as your opponent. Then you do whatever you can to try and goad your opponent to join you by opting in.

A “process story?” He’s kidding himself. This attack hits Obama where it hurts the most – the idea that he’s a different kind of politician, an “Agent of Change.” How can Obama credibly make those claims if he’s playing the old game of spending massive amounts of money to get elected. People won’t care where it comes from. They’ll only see that Obama would be raising an ungodly sum of money – playing politics the old fashioned way.

McCain’s attacks are well aimed and on target. It will be interesting to see how Obama plays this. While he has not made a formal “pledge” to forgo federal financing, McCain still has him over a barrel because Obama was agreeable to the idea of public financing. Obama is trapped by his own supporter’s ideal of the candidate. To this point, he has successfully wrapped himself in a cloak of unquestioned integrity – even if living up to that standard hurts him politically. This is what his supporters expect. To do anything less will assist in their disillusionment.

And that must be McCain’s number one priority; level the race by bringing Obama back down to an earthly plane. McCain cannot win if on election day, Obama is seen as some kind of civic messiah. He must be exposed for the inexperienced, shallow thinking, ultra-liberal politician that he is.

Is there anything short of capitulation for Obama? Allah has his options:

1. Abide by the pledge and give up that moneybomb advantage. Not a chance.

2. Deny that he ever “pledged” to take public funds and weasel out of the deal. Possible.

3. Offer McCain an alternative deal which he’ll never accept because it plays too much to Obama’s advantages. See the “$150 contribution” proposal in LJ’s second post.

4. Accept the deal and shunt the moneybombs off onto 527s:

As the two campaigns dueled, people on both sides said it was possible that they would agree to accept public financing and then simply have each political party spend unlimited amounts on behalf of its candidate, including money for voter mobilization efforts and television commercials, as allowed by law.

5. Admit that he “pledged” but has to break his pledge now because he’s got a movement thing going that people want to be part of and, goshdarnit, it wouldn’t be fair to them to deny them the fun of donating. Weak, but still preferable to number one.

I think option #2 is really his only option. Whatever hit he takes politically pales in comparison to the advantage he will get by having all that Democratic cash to spend. Where McCain will be limited in going after targets of opportunity like Pennsylvania and perhaps even California, Obama, if he is fully funded, will be able to literally run a 50 state campaign. He and the various Soros-funded 527’s will bury McCain under an avalanche of ads as well as organizing a GOTV operation that the GOP will be unable to match.

Still, this line of attack by McCain proves that he’s a canny campaigner, making the most of what’s available to him in order to score political points. It’s never too early and McCain getting a head start on trying out some themes for his campaign shows that he may surprise some people with the aggressiveness of his campaign.