http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91748755The match between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain is shaping up as the most unevenly financed presidential race since 1972.
That's the year that Richard Nixon ran for re-election, raised unprecedented sums of money and spawned the campaign scandals that led Congress to enact public financing.
Obama announced on Thursday that he won't take public funds for the general-election campaign. McCain says he will. McCain will get more than $84 million from the government for the two-month fall campaign. But Obama's turbo-charged fundraising operation can leave that in the dust.
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Sen. Barack Obama this week blamed his decision to reject public financing on 527 groups that work on behalf of John McCain. Jonathan Martin of Politico says there really aren't any major 527s working against Obama. Michele Norris talks to Martin.
In 2007, when Sen. Obama was raising the money that was essential for him to become a serious candidate, "54 percent of his contributions came in contributions of a thousand dollars or more, and much of that money was raised by bundlers," he says
Bundlers are people who solicit friends and colleagues for checks that they bundle for delivery to the campaign. Wertheimer says Obama wouldn't be where he is without them.
"He has not created a parallel system of public financing," he says.
But Obama has created by far the largest system of small, voluntary donors that American politics has ever seen. It's changing the landscape for 2008 and beyond.
On Thursday, McCain immediately accused Obama of breaking his word. McCain's campaign said Obama had promised to negotiate with McCain so that they'd both take public money and limit spending by their national party committees.
