It's what the statute says. To get federal funds, you got to get the FEC to certify that you are eligible to hold the office.
To be fair, a candidate who can raise more money privately than he can get from the government might not take the federal money--although Obama was adamant throughout the campaign that he would take federal money. However in his case, there are a number of news stories that have the Saudis and the Palestinians trying to buy a President of the US with several hundred million dollars of "campaign contributions" so he gets more money from them than he does from the federal government. All illegal of course but no practical remedy at the moment.
Wow David, thanks for this information. Very interesting indeed.
I wish we could get the word out there that Palestine is contributing to his campaign. Especially since he said yesterday that there WILL be a state of Palestine.