A truly astounding flip-flop that Team Obama hopes will make it under the radar. As long as Barack Obama doesn’t personally get involved, they hope, voters will still have the perception that Mr. Clean’s a new kind of politician engaging in a new, respectable brand of politics. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, shall we?

You’ll recall that The One has spent this campaign (and much of the past few years) slamming 527s and other third-party influences in the campaign. Here’s MSNBC on his past criticisms of the groups:

Obama also pledged to ask any 527s that might advertise on his behalf to discontinue advertising. But he would not pledge to disavow 527 advertising in the general election, saying he didn’t want to “endanger the Democratic Party’s ability to win races by letting the other side outspend us by two to three million dollars.” He did say that if his Republican opponent agree to do so as well, he would abide by the public financing.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama even considers sponsoring legislation to outlaw the groups.

Now? Not so much.

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.

Team Obama uses Republican 527s as their excuse for breaking yet another promise. As Ed Morrissey notes, however, that hardly pans out. Righty groups have raised somewhere in the area of $15 million, with two-thirds of that going to Vets for Freedom which defends the Bush Administration on Iraq. By comparison, lefty groups such as the SEIU and AFL-CIO have taken in tens of millions to help Democrats (especially Obama). He’s getting plenty of help already.

I don’t recall exactly who said it originally, but all of Obama’s promises come with an expiration date. All of them.