Clinton, once again, trying to start a semantic debate

The Clinton camp has accused Obama of going back on his word about pursuing a publicly financed general election.

This is exactly what hurts Clinton in the long run -- the campaign latches onto something that voters see as petty, Obama reacts articulately and says he doesn't understand why they're focusing on this instead of the issues, and ultimately, more people jump ship from Clinton to Obama.

Here's the gist:
In a questionnaire in 2007, answering a question about agreeing to a publicly financed election, Obama wrote, "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."

Then, at a press conference on Friday, Obama loosened that position, saying, "If I am the nominee, I will make sure our people talk to John McCain's people to find out if we are willing to abide by the same rules and regulations, with respect to the general election, going forward. ... It would be presumptuous of me to start saying now that I am locking in to something, when I don't even know if the other side will agree to it. And I'm not the nominee yet. We're trying to get through this process. As soon as we do, I assure you, my folks and John McCain's folks will sit down and see if we can arrive at a common set of ground rules."

The Clinton campaign pounced, saying this is an example of Obama going back on his word.

Here's The Note's take on it.

The reality is, I think, that this type of campaigning may be effective against McCain, but it hasn't effective against Obama. It has consistently worked against Clinton in the polls, and I'm not sure why the Clinton camp thinks that's going to change.