President Obama's re-election campaign made an about-face late Monday in its opposition to super PACs, encouraging donors to send their unlimited contributions to one such group founded by a former administration spokesman.In a Sunday interview with Matt Lauer, the president reiterated his worry about Super PACs:
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina emailed supporters to formally endorse contributions to Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC founded by Bill Burton, a former White House deputy press secretary.
"With so much at stake, 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 on the campaign's blog. "Therefore, the campaign has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PAC."
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Obama has led Democrats in opposition to these groups, especially at the height of 2010's congressional elections. Republican-aligned groups like American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS took advantage of the new rules to great effect, spending tens of millions of dollars against Democrats during that election.
"And thanks to a Supreme Court decision called Citizens United, they are being helped along this year by special interest groups that are spending unlimited amounts of money on attack ads … without ever disclosing who’s behind all these attack ads," Obama said of Republicans and super PACs that fall. "Now, that’s not just a threat to Democrats — that’s a threat to our democracy."
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