Barack Obama made history this week. He announced he will become the first major-party presidential nominee since Richard M. Nixon in 1972 to fund his general election campaign solely by private contributions.

By rejecting the public-finance law, under which the last eight presidential elections have been run, with its equal dollar grants to the Democratic and Republican nominees, Obama — with his prodigious fundraising juggernaut — all but guarantees that he will be the first presidential nominee since the aforementioned Nixon to have a better than two-to-one spending advantage over his November opponent, John McCain.

For more than four decades, the Democrats' argument in support of campaign finance-public funding has been constant: We must assure "a level playing field" between the two parties. Why? To prevent money — and a candidate's access to it — from determining who wins and who loses. That was the Democrats' and Obama's mantra when deep-pocketed Republicans consistently outspent Democrats.

But not this year, when Obama with his 1.5 million contributors and their 3 million contributions has, according to the most recent reports, raised almost three times as much money as McCain and had twice as much cash on hand. Obama, it is now clear, was all for a level playing field until the 2008 playing field tilted overwhelmingly in his favor.

But no reformer can admit he's simply refusing to surrender his huge dollar advantage. So as Sheila Krunmholz of the Center for Responsive Politics perfectly puts it, "Barack Obama is taking the high road all the way to the bank."

The Illinois Democrat argues the "public financing system as it exists today is broken." But indefatigable campaign reformer Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 notes Obama "knew the circumstances surrounding the presidential general election when he made his pledge to use the system."

Obama also charges his GOP opponent's campaign and the Republican National Committee "are fueled by contributions from Washington lobbyists and PACs." And what about those "so-called 527 groups who will spend millions of dollars in unregulated donations?"

Sounds good until you check the facts. McCain has raised a grand total of $650,000 from the lobbying industry (Obama pledges not to accept lobbyists' or PAC money), according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and just 1 percent of his contributions are from PACs. Talk about a paper tiger.

But everybody remembers the most famous 527 group of all, the 2004 "Swift boats" attack ads questioning John Kerry's bravery in Vietnam. Here are the numbers: The 527 spending has heavily favored Democrats over Republicans in every election cycle since 2000. In 2004, Democratic-leaning 527 groups spent $316 million to Republican-leaning 527s' $113 million. So far in 2008, the 527 spending has been $116 million to $69 million in favor of the Democrats.

Obama complicated his current situation by publicly proposing in March 2007 an agreement between the two major party nominees to rely exclusively upon public financing for the general election. John McCain immediately agreed. Last November, Obama stated: "I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election," and on Feb. 26, Obama told the late Tim Russert, who had asked him if he might "break your word" on his public financing pledge, "I will sit down with John McCain and make sure that we have a system that works for everybody."

Obama has long acknowledged and accepted the basic reality that you cannot change Washington until you change the way we finance our politics and our campaigns. True, his campaign has done what was considered impossible by bringing in so many new, small contributors, which is healthy for American democracy. But don't, as some Obama folks do, call this a different form of public financing. It is not. Public financing imposes spending limits.

Obama did not "aggressively pursue" any agreement. He did not sit down with John McCain.

He did not do what he told us he would do. He may very well win the White House. But even if he does, Barack Obama will still be just one more politician who broke his word.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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COPYRIGHT 2008 MARK SHIELDS