Super PACs Too Enticing for Obama
By: Nikki Willoughby
February 7, 2012 
6 Comments
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That seems to be the message from the Obama campaign as President Barack Obama–” in an act of hypocrisy or necessity, depending on the beholder”–has signaled his support for the unlimited fundraising capacity of the Super PACs born from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
In a statement, Common Cause President Bob Edgar said: “If President Obama had fixed presidential public financing, as he pledged to do in 2008, and seriously gone to bat for more transparency in campaign spending, our political system would be healthier and this would be less of an issue.”
Obama’s campaign urged wealthy fundraisers in a Monday night conference call to support Priorities USA, a super PAC led by two former Obama aides that has struggled to compete with the tens of millions of dollars collected by Republican-backed outside groups.
Obama’s top campaign staff and even some Cabinet members will appear at super PAC events. The president himself will not address super PAC donors, although there’s nothing to legally prohibit the president, first lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden from expressing their support for the group — as GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has done for his own pet super PAC.
“We decided to do this because we can’t afford for the work you’re doing in your communities, and the grass-roots donations you give to support it, to be destroyed by hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads,” campaign manager Jim Messina told supporters in an email Monday night.
More news reports:
- The move marks a clear political risk for Obama, who has staked much of his political career on opposition to the outsized role of “secret billionaires” and other monied interests while also attempting to win reelection in a struggling economy. (Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 2/7/12)
- The super PACs have played a major role in the primary contests. In GOP primaries so far, groups working for or against presidential candidates have spent roughly $25 million on TV ads — about half the nearly $53 million spent on advertising so far to influence voters in the early weeks of the race. The group supporting Mitt Romney, Restore Our Future, collected $17.9 million in contributions since July, most of which it spent on advertisements supporting Romney or attacking Republican rival Newt Gingrich. A pro-Gingrich group, Winning Our Future, received $11 million from the family of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. (Ken Thomas, Associated Press, 2/7/12)
- [Campaign manager Jim] Messina said the campaign hoped to “ensure that the decisive factor in this election won’t be an unprecedented flood of special-interest spending, and (that) the outcome will be in the hands of ordinary Americans.” (Stephen Collinson, AFP, 2/7/12)
The rationale for the President’s green light to Super PAC money to grease the skids for his campaign is understandable. That his decision fails the smell test is regrettable. That it will most probably prolong the restoration of any semblance of decency for political campaign fundraising is deplorable.
A President, who freely boasted of raising amounts enabling him to win election four years ago through small campaign donations, now bows to the purse strings of bloated special interests. This indelible stain on the Obama candidacy promises to turn the once most admired nation in the world into one that is at its very core nothing more than a pathetic banana republic.
President Obama’s only saving grace in his misguided submission to playing by rules that distort democracy, blessed by arguably the worst decision in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, is that he has no viable opponent with the courage to stand up to forces relentlessly seeking the best chief executive money can buy and a government of, by and for the wealthy.
There must be a redoubling of efforts to seal the coffin of the Citizens United travesty. Small donors who had intended to contribute to the Obama campaign might be better advised to tear up those checks and instead write them to Common Cause. Let the big boys fight this one out, while the rest of the 99 per cent strive to ensure that this November will bring us to the very last United States presidential auction.
This election is about the next supreme court make up. We have to hold our nose’s and play with the pigs, till we can put order back in the court, if that means superpacs so be it.
Thank you for the post, Bob. I am deeply disappointed in the president’s decision, as I was disappointed when he broke his pledge in 2008 to limit his campaign to public funding. The only good thing to come of this is that it now makes the Super PAC/Citizens United issue truly bipartisan. At least our leaders can agree on something.
This election is about the next supreme court make up. We have to hold our nose’s and play with the pigs, till we can put order back in the court, if that means superpacs so be it. Maybe they’ll reap what they’ve sown.
There was a great piece on how to fix this citizen’s united issue in the last New York Review of Books. Campaign finance and ballot access are both hugely important. We need more people voting, regular people. I wrote a piece about registering voters on my site…
democracychronicles.com
Yes, the fact that the President has to resort to asking big money donors to help out is disappointing. So is global warming, overpopulation, overhunting, the GOP, and so on, but…it is reality. Let’s look at the flip side. One of the bozos running for President in the GOP might actually win, destroy more of the planet, destroy social security, and…do we need to go on?