Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, announced yesterday that the Obama campaign will start working more closely with Priorities USA and other SuperPACs that support the president’s re-election.
It’s about time. For liberals and Democrats, this is good news. It means that Obama is not going to unilaterally “disarm” in this campaign, and give Republicans an even larger fundraising advantage than the one they already enjoy.
Yes, in the world as it should be, money wouldn’t matter so much in our politics. But we live in the world as it is. Fortunately (thanks in part to his organizing background) that’s something Barack Obama understands. It’s why when push came to shove, he opted out of public financing for his 2008 presidential campaign when it became clear he could raise far more money from his base of supporters than he would get from the public financing option. (The fact that it was also clear that John McCain wouldn’t be able to match his fundraising prowess was a not inconsiderable factor in the decision, too.)
Here’s how the invariably polite, mild-mannered and soft-spoken E. J. Dionne described the Citizens United decision that created the brave new world of SuperPACS: “(A)scribing an outrageous decision to naiveté is actually the most sympathetic way of looking at what the court did in Citizens United. A more troubling interpretation is that a conservative majority knew exactly what it was doing: that it set out to remake our political system by fiat in order to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy. Seen this way, Citizens United was an attempt by five justices to push future electoral outcomes in a direction that would entrench their approach to governance. “
Given that reality, liberals shouldn’t give up any legal means available to combat the power of organized money aimed at creating and preserving a permanent plutocracy in the US.
Crossposted at: http://masscommons.wordpress.com/
