No Surprise

And no harm. Parsing BO's reason, so as to make it seem non-hypocritical, is hard though not impossible.

But.

Voters do not attend to this.

For the record, GT12 is not a great supporter of fed funding ... it justs pumps money into 527's which cannot, constitutionally, be controlled.

McCain, no matter how well intentioned, was not interested in free speech protection.

Obama Opts Out of Public Financing for Campaign

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he would not participate in the public financing system for presidential campaigns. He argued that the system had collapsed, and would put him at a disadvantage running against Senator John McCain, his likely Republican opponent.

With his decision, Mr. Obama became the first candidate of a major party to decline public financing — and the spending limits that go with it — since the system was created in 1976, after the Watergate scandals.

Mr. Obama made his announcement in a video message sent to supporters and posted on the Internet. While it was not a surprise — his aides have been hinting that he would take this step for two months — it represented a turnabout from his strong earlier suggestion that he would join the system. Mr. McCain has been a champion of public financing of campaign throughout his career.

“The public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system,” he said. “John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs. And we’ve already seen that he’s not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations.”

Mr. Obama had pledged to meet with Mr. McCain following the primaries to attempt to work out an agreement on financing. That meeting never took place, aides to Mr. Obama said, because a meeting between lawyers for the two sides was not fruitful. “It became clear to me that there wasn’t any basis for future discussion,” said Robert Bauer, the general counsel for Mr. Obama’s campaign.