The effort — spearheaded by a small group of longtime congressional and White House aides — represents Democrats’ response to the electoral drubbing of 2010, when a coterie of conservative and business groups did a far better job than their opponents of adapting to a new campaign finance landscape.
“Our mission is to ensure that when Democrats are attacked by these third-party groups, we are there to respond,” said former Al Gore aide Monica Dixon, the executive director of Majority PAC, a new group that will focus on helping Senate Democrats. “We did not do enough last year to support our candidates. . . . Nobody can sit on the sidelines this year. There’s too much at stake.”
The plans underscore the rapidly growing importance of political groups outside the party system, many of which are free to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money because of a landmark Supreme Court decision and other court rulings last year.
The rulings led to a new kind of political action committee, dubbed “super PACs,” which must disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission but are not bound by the financial limits that apply to political campaigns. House and Senate candidates are also free to solicit donations on behalf of such groups as long as they do not coordinate with those groups on how the money is spent.
The new Democratic strategy centers on building a network of such groups focused separately on the presidential race, Senate contests and opposition research. Another piece of the puzzle is expected to fall into place this week with the formation of a group to aid Democratic candidates in the House.
The strategy poses a political problem for Obama and other Democrats, who railed against unfettered spending by outside interest groups last year but didn’t pass legislation to curb them. At least two of the new Democratic groups — Majority PAC and American Bridge 21st Century — will include a nonprofit arm that will not have to disclose donors to the public; another group that’s focused on the presidential race could follow the same path.
Chris Harris, a spokesman for American Bridge — which is building a “war room” concentrating on opposition research — compared the situation to a college football coach who still participates in bowl games despite favoring a playoff system.
“In 2010, we sort of sat on our hands in protest and got stomped,” Harris said. “We’ve got to get off the mat and fight back. We may not like the way the system is set up, but we have to work with the system we have.”
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