As is always the case with campaign finance reforms, once the system was broken, it proved impossible to put the genie back in the bottle, and subsequent candidates rejected public funding. Today some defend the decision by then senator Obama to blow up the system, insisting it was necessary to cope with the large amount of money Republicans could raise after the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that allowed contributions from corporations to be treated the same as individual donations—an explanation that makes no sense, because the ruling was two years after the 2008 campaign. The
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