The next flip-flop: Obama to encourage 527s to attack McCain

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Marc Ambinder has the latest reversal from the Chicago distributor of New Politics. Barack Obama has spent the past two years railing against the influence of 527 groups in election cycles, and has insisted that he will not tolerate their presence on his behalf in the general-election campaign. Just like his pledge not to bail out of the public-financing system and his promise not to raise soft money from lobbyists, though, it appears this commitment has expired, thanks to his sinking fortunes:

There’s been a spurt of 527 activity on behalf of Sen. John McCain, but Barack Obama campaign has suddenly gone silent on the subject.

That’s because, after of year of telling donors not to contribute to 527 groups, of encouraging strategists not to form them and of suggesting that outside messaging efforts would not be welcome in Obama’s Democratic Party, Obama’s strategists have changed their approach.

An Obama adviser privy to the campaign’s internal thinking on the matter says that,with less than two months before the election and with the realization that Republicans have achieved financial parity with Democrats, they hope that Democratic allies — what another campaign aide termed “the cavalry” — with come to Obama’s aid.