Obama's No Fool: He Made Right Choice on Funding

Barack Obama may be taking flak for opting out of public financing, but he would have been foolish to do otherwise, writes Charlie Cook in the National Journal. Cook is "relieved" that a potential president is savvy enough to hang on to a huge spending advantage. And in this race—in which "most voters are being asked, for the first time, to vote for someone who is very different from themselves"—Obama's going to need that money to make his case.

"I strongly suspect that if Obama had agreed to tie both hands behind his back going into the general election, the word "naive" might be thrown around once or twice, possibly more than "hypocrite" is now," Cook writes. Sure, McCain has the right to get some political mileage out of it, but don't think for a second he would take the high road if the tables were turned. (More Barack Obama stories.)