NYT: “With the primary season over, the presidential campaign has entered a new phase, one dictated by the competitive realities of the deregulated campaign finance system. Having decided not to take public financing for the general election, both Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney need to devote much of their time to banking the money necessary to fuel their campaigns through Election Day. This election cycle marks the completion of a gradual shift away from the days when candidates would be able to wrap up fund-raising on their own behalf ahead of their conventions in the middle of the summer and rely on public financing — which limits candidates to a preset expenditure level — for the general election.”

For my looks back at how this shift happened in 2008, see my chapter, The Transformation of the Campaign Financing Regime for U.S. Presidential Elections, in The Funding of Political Parties (Keith Ewing, Jacob Rowbottom, and Joo-Cheong Tham, eds., Routledge 2011) and More Supply, More Demand: The Changing Nature of Campaign Financing for Presidential Primary Candidates.