No surprise: Obama’s campaign asks Democrats to donate to Pro Obama Super PAC
However, as some have pointed out, the reason why there is no surprise why the Obama campaign change might be different and much less of a “DRASTIC U-TURN!!!!” than what your gut (or Fox “News”), or the tan-man majority leader “just another broken promise” might be telling you.
In truth, it’s not really a change – call it a disappointed concession that, since Citizen’s United, the ONLY way to compete in a political election is with a whopping-boat-load of cash – it’s a wee bit of a coincidence that in our current socioeconomic environment how raising that cash can only be accomplished by focussing on a very small percentage of the population… say… about 1%. The same 1% that the Republican party is protecting, and from which nearly ALL of their donations are coming.
Democrats have millions of donors with small donations, Republicans have a dozen donors contributing millions each achieving the same net cash in the coffers.
The Obama Super PAC move is a concession for one reason: the Obama 2012 campaign needs to win, and to do that they need to compete in the media. Media costs money. It’s sad, it’s true, and this is the only option the Obama campaign had if it’s going to compete and win the 2012 election. So if you’re a progressive who is angry about the hypocrisy, ask yourself: who do you want in the White House (AND) if Obama’s campaign has the money to compete and get out the vote, how much more will a powerful democratic super pac help all democrats running nation wide since they will also be continually attacked by super pacs supporting the right? This is an issue of the system within which we operate now. If you’re angry, fight about that, don’t blame the Obama campaign simply because they want to keep President Obama in the white house. Win the white house.
Win the majority, then reform campaign financing. For now: we have to play the game.
But honestly, if you were running a presidential campaign and saw Super PAC fundraising numbers like we have now… what would you do? Republican super pacs raising something well over 80 million as compared to the pro Obama super pac that has raised 4.4 million dollars? (That’s just the super pacs, however, which are grossly Republican heavy based on donations over 1 million dollars from corporations.) Granted, President Obama will have millions in small donations as was successful in the 2008 election, but nevertheless, the post Citizen’s United world is proving to be even worse than we thought it was going to be. I mean… we all pondered it, but who really thought that ONE PERSON (in this case a Nevada billionaire who have the privilege to hold a special caucus in schools with his name on it). As I heard someone explain how insignificant giving 10 million dollars to Newt Gingrich was like for Mr. Adelson (paraphrased), “If you had $21,000, it would be like forking over 10 bucks.” Not too big a deal, and plenty more where that came from.
From the Obama campaign: Jim Messina explained that the President is “opposed the Citizens United decision. He understood that with the dramatic growth in opportunities to raise and spend unlimited special-interest money, we would see new strategies to hide it from public view. He continues to support a law to force full disclosure of all funding intended to influence our elections… And [he] favors action — by constitutional amendment, if necessary — to place reasonable limits on all such spending.”
But we can’t play (translation: we can’t win) by two different sets of rules.
Of course, then he continues to make the case for donations to pro Democrat super pacs to level the playing field. In that argument, I agree. This much blind money in political campaigns is beyond dangerous, it mutilates the democratic process by controlling media, and what the voters know through purchase power. Since most voters don’t have enough time (or desire sadly) to settle in and do real research about all the claims flying around: they’ll believe what they’re told by the ads that most closely mirror their current beliefs. Make enough commercials and you can get all the votes you need.
