Coordination, Super PACs and the Presidential Race

Earlier posts discussed how national party committees have used "micro sites" as a lawful way of supplying message guidance to outside spending groups. The Democratic National Committee has now set up a "macro site" with oppo on the GOP presidential candidates: http://www.democrats.org/news/gop-extreme

Who will use it? Outside spending groups supporting the president. And they are getting under way, as Politico reports:

A super PAC created to advance Mitt Romney’s campaign for the GOP nomination raised $12.2 million in the first half of the year. One set up to help President Barack Obama spent $97,000 on ads attacking Romney. Supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s dark horse Republican bid are using a super PAC to pay for $6,000-worth of billboards and print ads ahead of the Ames straw poll. And one of the half-dozen super PACs established to bolster Texas Gov. Rick Perry in his yet-to-be-declared campaign for the GOP nomination is airing ads in Iowa calling him “a better option for president.”

“You can be sure that we haven’t seen the last of these things, whether it’s this cycle or some future cycle, unless the legal climate changes,” said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan group that tracks political fundraising data and trends. “You can’t expect candidates not to take advantage of something like this when their opponents are.”