Barack Obama has discovered the cash value of the high road: $2 million.
That’s how much the Obama-endorsed Super PAC Priorities USA Action raised in February, a paltry number when compared to the hauls of GOP primary candidates (and the Super PAC even had a leap day).
Obama has been a vociferous critic of the Citizens United decision, going so far as to call out the Supreme Court to their mad-muppet faces in his State of the Union Address. The President’s staunch opposition to the torrential funneling of money through the PACs has helped his populist pivot in the run up to the general election.
But Obama dealt a huge blow to both his 99% image and his 99% argument when he endorsed a Super PAC of his own. Jim Messina gave the hypocritical switcheroo the old college try, arguing in an editorial titled “We Will Not Play by Two Sets of Rules” that the Obama campaign still disapproved of Super PAC involvement in elections, but so long as Republicans were availing themselves of the organizations, the campaign would not be handicapped by moral restraint.
This argument was met with incredulity, and Messina was likely hoping it would tide the campaign over until the Super PAC began raking in the cash.
That hasn’t happened yet. $2 million is less than half of the individual contributions Sheldon Adelson gave to Newt Gingrich, itself only 5% of the contributions to Republican Super PACs overall, and Adelson is giving that despite the fact that he doesn’t even believe Newt’s going to win. Worse, half of Priorities USA Action’s $2 million came from Bill Maher, who was recently tagged by the Rush Limbaugh “slut” scandal, and who might do considerably more than $1 million worth of damage to the campaign by his association with it.
Now, some caveats: the Republican candidates are in the midst of a fierce primary, and are raising money to maintain the vitality of their campaigns. The Obama campaign is under no such deadline, and it’s a small wonder its potential donors feel no sense of urgency. Expect the Super PAC’s total to increase mightily once the general rolls around. Also, Obama doesn’t need the Super PAC the way his GOP rivals do; he’s a fundraising machine on his own, and it’s likely he just wants the PAC to promote a more hard line message so that he can maintain a positive, conciliatory tone in his own campaign literature.
But that makes it all the more curious as to why Obama endorsed the Super PAC in the first place, rather than retaining his ability to criticize the PACs, and in doing so draw a stark election-year contrast between himself and a 1%-funded Republican opponent.
Instead, the Obama campaign is now mired in a series of arguments about how up is really down. In addition to Messina’s weak editorial, Prioties USA Action spokesman Bill Burton told the press that the $2 million raised was “40 times” what it raised in January. That may be true, but it sounds pathetic. Why submit a reelection campaign to these rhetorical acrobatics for a lousy $2 million?
If the PAC doesn’t raise more money, and its spokespeople don’t get better at explaining its existence, Obama may find no amount of donations are worth ceding the moral high ground.
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Should Obama distance himself from Maher? Discuss.
Follow Evan McMurry @evanmcmurry
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