Obama, in a switch, endorses pro-Democratic super PAC

[Poll_Blind]

From Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2012/02/06/gIQAVqnWvQ_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop
[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0.3077em 0.3077em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Obama gives blessing to a super PAC[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3077em 0.3077em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Fearing a tide of spending by outside conservative groups, President Obama is giving his blessing to a pro-Democratic Party “super PAC” that will work to help his reelection, his campaign said late Monday.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a message to supporters that “our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it stands,” which he said gives a large financial advantage to Republicans and their allied groups. Messina said Obama will throw his support to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC founded by two former White House aides that until now has been unable to match its conservative competitors in fundraising.

“We can’t allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm,” Messina wrote.

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.

Of course if candidate Obama had flatly stated "I won't take super-PAC money...unless the Republicans do and then I'm all-in.", he might not have wound up as the Democratic nominee.

So that must be the pragmatism I keep hearing about.

PB

[TheWraith]

1. Uh, there WAS no super-PAC money when Obama ran for the nomination, remember?

Super-PACs didn't exist at that point. No Citizens United yet.

In any event, I for one don't believe in unilateral disarmament.

[Poll_Blind]

3. You're ignoring his railing agianst Citizens United during his State of the Union speech:

Rings a little hollow now, doesn't it?

PB

[BzaDem]

10. If you didn't believe in violence, and you were being charged at, would you fight back?

I mean, this really isn't complicated. You have never heard of the concept of being in favor of a generally applicable rule, but not being in favor of that rule if it is only applied to one side? There are thousands of examples where a good rule would be insane to apply only to one side.

[Poll_Blind]

16. LOL! Is this discussion about the President being subject to physical violence?

What, exactly, is it you think is being discussed here?

PB

[BzaDem]

17. The discussion is about the concept of general rule > no rule > selectively applied rule.

In the case of violence, it is obvious that while less violence is preferable to more violence on one's part, more violence on one's part is preferable to no violence when violence is being done to them.

In the case of campaign finance, a campaign finance system that limits aggregations of wealth for campaign spending is preferable to one with fewer such limits. But a system with fewer such limits is vastly preferable to strict limits on one side and no limits on the other.

In the case of the filibuster, a system with more opportunity for majority votes is preferable to a system with less opportunity for majority votes. But a system with less opportunity for majority votes is far preferable to a system where only one side gets to have majority votes (with the other side having to pass things by supermajority).

When playing a board game, an informal rule that limits all players may be better than no such rule. But no such rule is vastly better than limits only applying to one player.

And on and on and on. This is not complicated.

[nanabugg]

28. You're ignoring the intelligence of the President.

He is against super pacs but he is for "winning." I would have less respect for the President if he would disarm in the face of battle. He is playing by the rules that the SCOTUS set in stone. This is his response to the Koch brothers and I, for one, am happy about it!

[TheWraith]

29. No, I'm not. I'm not in favor of unilateral disarmament, are you?

If you don't believe violence is a good thing, does that mean you're going to sit back, let someone kick the shit out of you, steal your wallet, and watch other crimes committed right in front of your eyes that you could stop, simply because "violence is wrong, mmmkay"?

[MrSlayer]

2. You have to fight with the weapons you're given.

It would be ridiculous for Obama to not do it. These are the rules of the game right now.

[Poll_Blind]

4. Was he just..you know...bullshitting and saying what he thought people wanted to hear when...

...he called out the Supreme Court for their Citizens United ruling during his State of the Union speech?

PB

[Tx4obama]

5. There are TWO issues here

1) President Obama does NOT like the SCOTUS ruling and he called upon Congress to pass a bill to FIX the problem.

-- Congress has NOT yet fixed the problem.

2) President Obama never said that if the problem wasn't fixed that he would not take super-pac help. If the Republicans are going to have super-pacs helping them try to win races, then it is fair for the Democrats to use everything in their power to do so too.


p.s. Also, I am going to guess that the transparency will be greater with the Democratic backing super-pacs and I'll betcha there won't be any money from 'foreign corporations' involved.

[Poll_Blind]

8. LOL- I don't recall his famous proclamations against CU ending with "Unless the Repukes do it."

[div class ="excerpt"]p.s. Also, I am going to guess that the transparency will be greater with the Democratic backing super-pacs and I'll betcha there won't be any money from 'foreign corporations' involved.

This quoted stuff above. This is make believe. You know it, I know it, everyone reading this thread knows it.

You're simply betting that shady donations won't be uncovered. Hell, maybe the media won't pick up on this story and nobody will notice...

Uh, ok, I just skimmed Google News and it looks like that didn't happen:

National Journal - In Reversal, Obama Urging Super PAC Donations
ABC News - Changing Positions, Obama Campaign Will Push Support for Democratic Super PAC
Canada Journal - In reversal, Obama backs lucrative fundraising drive
Fox News - Obama changes tune, urges fundraisers to back Super PAC
Reuters - In shift, Obama campaign to support Super Pac fundraiser
New York Magazine - Obama Campaign Changes Position on Super-PACs, Will Now Embrace Donations

TPM - Obama Campaign To Court Super PAC Cash They Loathe

Ouch.

I'm sure these sorts of flipflops won't come up during the Presidential debates later in the year though, right?

Right?!?

PB

[Tx4obama]

11. Please show us even one quote from President Obama where he states that he does not still want ...

Congress to pass a bill to fix this mess.

Waiting ...

[Poll_Blind]

18. Who said he didn't? You're fabricating little foot-stomping demands as replies to things...

.....which never happened.

That's odd. I suppose it technically qualifies as a "tactic", but it's nonsensical.

PB

[BzaDem]

20. The only nonsensical thing is the idea that one should cede the election to the other candidate

before the campaign even begins.

[SidDithers]

26. +1...nt

Sid

[BzaDem]

12. Honestly, it seemed trivially obvious to me.

This is one of the many thousands of cases where

general rule > no rule > rule applied selectively.

If someone told me at the time of the SOTU that what Obama meant was that he should unilaterally disarm when his opponent took full advantage of the law, I would have asked what substance they were on. Those are in no way what his words meant.

Your proposal is a road to a one-party state. You may believe we have one already, but your proposal brings us exponentially closer to it. I would question Obama's sanity (and the sanity of any other Democrat running for office) if they unilaterally ceded the election to the other side.

[Tx4obama]

21. Calling my OPINION 'make believe' is offensive and uncalled for.

Edited to add:

Btw, You and I both know that 'you' do not speak for the whole thread

[global1]

22. Right?!? - No - Right Wing Press.....nt

[MrSlayer]

7. Not at all.

We all know it's bad. But to not use it when the other guys are going to use it is surrendering the field. I don't believe either of us are naïve enough to believe that just on the merits of policy you can win. This is going to be ugly and we have to be just as ugly. The consequences are too severe to not use this tool.

[Poll_Blind]

14. "This is going to be ugly and we have to be just as ugly."

It's always ugly. LOL, WTF- did you think politics just got ugly or something?

One of the reasons we don't have a President McCain and VP WolfShooter is because one could make the case that we clearly had a better, more moral candidate to offer- and I think President Obama handily beat McCain's sorry ass because McCain was an obvious relic of the status quo in Washington.

If he fucking wants to win he needs to be able to distance himself from the immorality of his opponent and point out his better choices, what he stands for.

You should know by now a "Status Quo vs Status Quo" election in 2012 is going to mean depressed voter turnouts and you should also know by now that shit almost never plays out well for the Democrats.

And we're not just talking the Presidency, we've still got to win back an unprecedented number of seats to regain the House.

I find it chimerical that you would so casually downplay this with a bromide on moral flexibility.

PB

[BzaDem]

19. Obama beat McCain after Obama reversed his position on public financing, and raised 750 million

instead of the 85 million dollar public financing limit. Much of the 750 million he raised was required to fight back against hundreds of millions of independent expenditures that went to ads that told deliberate lies and distortions.

Do you oppose him for doing that too?

[T S Justly]

6. He's so wonderful.

[Tx4obama]

13. Yes, he is wonderful :) We need to get him re-elected so that he can get Congress to pass a bill

to fix the problem of the Super-PACS.

A Republican president would never ask Congress to pass a bill to end super-pacs and we all know that!

Any one that thinks that Obama should tie his own hands while the Republican are going to try to out raise him on money to be used against him probably isn't thinking straight.

When you're in a campaign, you play by the rules of the game that you're handed - then after you win that is the time to work to get the rules changed.

[Skittles]

9. well he is correct in his reasoning

like it or not he has to use it to compete with repukes in the election process

[Lionessa]

23. I wonder what would happen if somehow on his behalf, as super PACs do,

they instead used that money toward supplementing or offering grants to Medicaid providers, Medicare providers, local and state non-profits, food banks, and such. I just wonder if that wouldn't get him more votes than adverts.

[erpowers]

24. Bad Idea Big Mistake

President Obama may still be able to get reelected, but I think supporting "super pacs" was a bad idea and a big mistake. First, Obama's lack of support for "super pacs" was a diffeerence between President Obama and whoever would be the Republican nominee (most likely Romney).

Second, the amount of people giving to President Obama and how much they gave was also a difference between him and Romney. 199 people gave millions of dollars to Romney. On the other hand thousand of people gave money to President Obama. The majority of President Obama's donations came from people giving less than $200. This showed that President Obama had broad based support whereas Romney only had the support of a small group of people. Even though Romney would have criticized President Obama he could have made the point that he was the 99% President while Romney was the 1% candidate. When Romney made his politics of division comment President Obama could have responded; it is not a politics of division it is pointing out that Romney's campaign is being supported by 1% of the population. Not 1% in terms of the people who have done well, but one percent in terms of raising large sums of money from an extremely small group of people.

Now that all goes all goes away. I will accept that the strategy that I laid out above might not have actually worked. However, I think people would have been willion to hear that argument.

[spanone]

25. Obama knows what will happen when they turn the super pacs loose on him

he best be ready....rove and company will come with guns blazing

[SidDithers]

27. Oh FFS...

Only the incredibly politically naive would expect Democrats to hamstring themselves by voluntarily playing by a different set of rules than the Republicans.

Is this going to be the latest issue from the perpetually outraged? What nonsense.

Sid