Obama Embraces Super PAC

President Barack Obama, here pictured delivering the State of the Union address, has been a staunch opponent of the Supreme Court ruling that allowed Super PACS. But that doesn't mean he won't have one of his own come election time.

Image: Getty Images

Expect President Barack Obama to tone down the rhetoric against Super PACs, those independent organizations that can raise unlimited amounts of money to spend supporting or opposing political candidates.

That’s because the Obama campaign has given its blessing to a Super PAC founded by two former White House aides, according to the Washington Post.

“Our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it stands,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote the president’s supporters.

Court decisions in 2010 empowered Super PACs to play an outsized role in this campaign, and Republican Super PACs have sprouted up like weeds. They’ve played a major role in the Republican presidential campaign, keeping Newt Gingrich alive (for now at least) despite a huge fund-raising gap between his campaign and that of Mitt Romney’s. Other Republican Super PACs are building war chests that they’ll use to unload on Obama.

“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.

So much for hope and change. This election, Obama’s strategy is duck and cover -- and then hit back with everything he can muster, no matter where it comes from.