Washington, DC—Public Campaign Action Fund, a leading national campaign reform group, issued the following statement today by David Donnelly, national campaigns director:

“While it is preferable that the presidential nominees opt into the public funding system for the general election, the McCain campaign’s statement criticizing Sen. Obama does absolutely nothing to advance the cause of either bipartisan public financing bills in Congress. These campaign decisions about participating in the public financing system are guided narrowly by what helps a campaign get ahead, as evidenced by Senator McCain’s opting in and out of the primary public financing system, not by what is best for reform.

“The next president must boldly pledge to make 2008 the last election dominated by big special interests. Only by committing to make the passage of both congressional and presidential public financing of elections a priority, and by adding their names to the bipartisan legislation now pending in the Senate, will we know that a presidential candidate is serious about make elections about all of us, not just big money donors.

“Senator Obama has passed this test. Senator McCain has not. Until he does, we will work to hold McCain accountable.”

Public Campaign Action Fund released a comprehensive report on Sen. McCain’s multiple positions on public financing of elections yesterday, which can be viewed at http://www.campaignmoney.org/mccain. In an online survey of more than 8,000 of its email subscribers, Public Campaign Action Fund found that, by 64.5% to 18.4%, reform activists thought it was more important that a candidate pledge to fix the system than to participate in it during the current election.

Public Campaign Action Fund is a nonprofit nonpartisan organization dedicated to passing Clean Elections-style public financing of federal and state elections, and works to hold politicians accountable.