Tying one arm behind our back

If there's one thing we've learned from Republicans, it's that they always bring a howitzer to a gunfight, while Democrats don't even bother bringing a knife -- they bring a spork.

We're seeing that dynamic at play once again in the presidential battle, where Edwards is already risking a broke summer in order to get public financing for their battle in the first (officially sanctioned states) states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

The other candidates non named Obama and Clinton are probably going to follow suit -- Dodd, Richardson, and the rest of the ones that don't matter. While all of their campaigns are dead in the water if they don't win one of those early states (and public financing limits what they can spend in each of those early states), they have consultants that wouldn't mind getting paid for a while longer. Or something.

Fact is, whoever wins the nomination would experience an unprecedented flood of small dollar donations, yet these candidates are likely to follow the Edwards model and surrender the summer to the Republicans, when the DNC will still lag the RNC and the GOP will have a whole new batch of 527s (like "Freedom Watch") to match our own. Meanwhile, the Republican nominee will be able to take on ours without the Democrat able to directly respond.

In a cycle when the traditional GOP money advantage has been turned on its head and Obama alone has generated more contributors than just about the entire GOP field combined, there's no reason for us to give up what's shaping up to be a massive edge in the money race.

But that's not all -- even Obama, who is opting out of public financing in the primary, has said he would opt in for the general if the Republican nominee did so as well -- again a unilateral disarmament. Again, our guy is going to have seriously more scratch to play with than the GOP. They would be morons not to opt in to negate what would be a dramatic Democratic advantage.

And that's just the cash advantage, not the intangible advantage campaigns get when people become financially vested in a campaign with their $20 or $100 contributions and work even harder to make sure their investment pays off. People want to engage, and most can't give their time (work and family can suck people dry). In those cases, a small contribution makes them feel part of the effort, yet that option would no longer be available.

Flip things around, and Republicans wouldn't think twice of opting out to bury the Democrats. But with the shoe on the other foot, we don't have the killer instinct to wield our advantages and bludgeon our opponents into the ground. I mean, it's only a presidential election, and one that if nothing else, will determine who will replace Justice Stevens on the court (and either keep its slight conservative advantage, or make it a prohibitively right-wing court).

Iraq, Iran, the Supreme Court, health care, and so many more important issues are at stake the next four years. Do we really want to surrender any advantages in this battle?

It pains me to see that of our nominees, only Hillary Clinton appears unwilling to give up any of our advantages in this critically important election.