Unleashed, Democrats Hunt for 'Super PAC' Donors
Share with others:
Leading Democrats have commenced a furious drive to galvanize and expand the network of wealthy liberal donors that has been largely dormant since 2004, hoping to recruit them to Democratic-leaning "super PACs" that President Obama now believes will be critical to winning re-election in November.
Officials at Priorities USA Action, a Democratic super PAC founded by two of Mr. Obama's former aides, scheduled a dozen meetings with potential donors in Los Angeles, New York and other cities on Tuesday, with hopes of tapping new sources of money, including among Silicon Valley executives.
In the coming weeks, the group will form a fund-raising account with two other super PACs working on behalf of Democratic House and Senate candidates, making it easier for donors to contribute broadly to independent efforts supporting the party. And they planned a fresh round of appeals to Obama supporters who have been major donors and bundlers for the president's own fund-raising efforts but who have not donated to independent expenditure groups.
The super PACs received a major boost on Monday when the Obama campaign announced that senior White House advisers and campaign staff would appear at fund-raising events for Priorities USA Action, the most forceful blessing yet that Mr. Obama has bestowed on independent expenditure groups and super PACs, which he once described as a "threat to democracy."
Mr. Obama's campaign aides have also begun discussing the matter with donors in more intimate settings. In a previously scheduled meeting with about 40 top Obama donors from the New York City area on Tuesday, Jim Messina, Mr. Obama's campaign manager, said the president and his aides had decided to help Priorities after watching Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Mitt Romney, bludgeon Mr. Romney's Republican rivals with millions of dollars in attack ads.
The meeting included prominent Democrats from Wall Street, the chief source of Mr. Romney's super PAC money: Hamilton E. James, the president of the private equity firm Blackstone Group; Marc Lasry, the hedge-fund executive; Robert Wolf, the chairman of UBS Group Americas; and Ralph Schlosstein, the president of Evercore Partners.
The leading Democratic super PACs raised just a quarter of the money in 2011 that their Republican counterparts did, sparking fears among Democrats that Mr. Obama and his party's Congressional candidates would be swamped by outside spending. Many of the largest donors so far to the Democratic super PACs are veterans of the Clinton fund-raising machine or Americans Coming Together, an independent expenditure group that raised $200 million in a failed effort to unseat George W. Bush in 2004.
First Published February 8, 2012 12:00 am
