Powerful pol opposed to Citizens United ruling and all that money in politics suddenly warm to the idea of Super PACs.

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Convenient.

In a change of position, Barack Obama's reelection campaign will begin using administration and campaign aides to fundraise for Priorities USA Action, a super PAC backing the president.

Obama has been an outspoken critic of current campaign financing laws, in particular a Supreme Court ruling that allowed the creation of super PACs. Until now he has kept his distance from Priorities USA Action.

But in the wake of the group's anemic fundraising, made public last week, the campaign decided to change its position, and announced the new stance to members of its national finance committee Monday evening.

The man raised more money for his successful presidential campaign than anyone in the history of human civilization so we don't understand what his beef is regarding money in politics. Good to see, however, he's gotten over that moral hangup.





An email from Team O showed up in our Inbox yesterday and which made it quite evident who is to blame for the Obama campaign losing the courage of their convictions:

But this cycle, our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it currently stands.

Over the last few months, Super PACs affiliated with Republican presidential candidates have spent more than $40 million on television and radio, almost all of it for negative ads.

Last week, filings showed that the Super PAC affiliated with Mitt Romney's campaign raised $30 million in 2011 from fewer than 200 contributors, most of them from the financial sector. Governor Romney personally helped raise money for this group, which is run by some of his closest allies.

Meanwhile, other Super PACs established for the sole purpose of defeating the President -- along with "nonprofits" that also aren't required to disclose the sources of their funding -- have raised more than $50 million. In the aggregate, these groups are expected to spend half a billion dollars, above and beyond what the Republican nominee and party are expected to commit to try to defeat the President.

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.

Everybody can whine about the corrupting influence of money in politics until the cows come home, but you will never remove money from politics until you remove power from politics/the government by corresponding degrees.