Dems bash GOP secret money, raise it themselves

By Kenneth P. Vogel and Alexander Burns

Democrats have seized on Republicans as the party of unlimited secret money.

The only problem: so are Democrats.

In recent days, Obama released an ad blasting “secretive oil billionaires” for attacks on him, Nancy Pelosi unveiled a campaign slogan calling for “a new politics free of special interest influence,” and the Democratic National Committee released a web ad accusing Mitt Romney of lying about his ties to a super PAC that’s spent millions supporting him.

Maybe that would have sounded better in 2008, when Obama put the kibosh on the Democratic outside money infrastructure — or even in 2010, when Obama led a chorus of Democrats assailing Republicans’ outside spending.

But this year, Democrats are playing the same game. Obama’s team has blessed a network of super PACs trying to raise the same seven-figure checks as Romney’s. And Obama’s allies have gone even further than Romney’s, setting up non-profit groups that do not disclose their donors at all.

In fact, top Democrats are so ardent about the need to raise unlimited — and sometimes secret — cash this year that some operatives aren’t pleased about the recent attacks, grumbling that it makes it a whole lot tougher to get wealthy liberals to fork over mega-checks when the politicians who’d benefit are ripping Republicans for taking the same types of contributions.

Then there are doubts about the effectiveness of such attacks, considering how they went the last time Democrats tried them in 2010. Obama and his allies spent the final weeks before Election Day complaining bitterly about GOP-allied spending groups, hinting they could be awash in illegal foreign money, only to watch Republicans notch historic gains in the House.

And, beyond that, the Obama campaign’s juggernaut fundraising makes the president an especially poor messenger for the attacks, reasoned one Democratic operative familiar with the Party’s outside money operation.

“When you’ve been talking about raising $1 billion, you really shouldn’t be talking about money in the political process,” the operative said. Democrats “should talk about issues that people really care about like whether their taxes are going to get raised, whether their kid is going to get sent to Afghanistan or whether they’re going to get blown up on a plane,” the operative said, adding “campaign finance isn’t a particularly resonate issue other than for those who are talking about it.”

But party leaders suggest the secret money attacks forecast in Obama’s ad – his first of the cycle – are part of a broader messaging strategy that seeks to cast Republicans as secretive and unethical pawns of big business who couldn’t care less about the plight of regular Americans.

“The reason that it was something we led with was that it’s part of the contrast,” said DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz when asked about why Obama’s ad began with a secret money attack rather than the gauzy positive themes that typically define inaugural ads.

The theme seems geared partly towards a potential general election that pits Obama against Romney – the GOP presidential candidate Democrats would least like to face. The former Massachusetts governor has come under heavy Democratic fire in recent days for his reluctance to detail his work at the helm of the private equity firm Bain Capital and his refusal to release his campaign bundlers or multiple years of tax returns — disclosures that Obama has made.

And, without prompting, Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman, pointed to Romney to explain the theme behind Obama’s ad. “It’s a pattern. Just look at Mitt Romney. He isn’t being frank and honest about his role in Bain Capital. He accepts hundreds of millions of dollars in shadowy special interest money that he talks out of both sides of his face about,” the Florida congresswoman told POLITICO, referring to Romney’s struggles to define his relationship with the deep-pocketed super PAC Restore Our Future, which has buoyed his campaign with sharp ads savaging his opponents.

The DNC released a web video this month asking Romney to “just tell the truth” about the super PAC, and noting that, despite his efforts to distance himself, he has raised money for it and was able to recite one of its ads from memory.

Meanwhile, New York Rep. Steve Israel, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, on Thursday emailed supporters urging donations by warning that Republicans “will use Karl Rove and the Koch brothers’ dirty money to fund their stealth campaigns attacking the President and Democrats across the country.” And last week, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee launched a social media ad campaign imploring viewers to “fight Karl Rove’s shadowy corporate money.”

The special interest money theme could play a recurring role in the president’s reelection campaign, Obama allies suggest.

The “secretive oil billionaires” ad, for instance, was seen in Obamaland partly as an effort to neutralize a potentially dangerous foe: Americans for Prosperity. The conservative non-profit group is registered under a section of the Internal Revenue Service code – 501(c)4 – that allows it to shield its donors from the public, but it’s known to have received millions from the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. The group, and others funded by the Kochs and their donor network, played a significant role in boosting Republicans in 2010 and have forecast their desire to take down Obama in 2012.

“The spot gives context by pointing out that oil billionaires who would do anything to maintain their tax breaks, demonize renewable energy and ensure that America remains dependent on oil are behind the attacks on the president,” Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said of the ad. It criticizes as “not tethered to the facts” Americans for Prosperity’s $6-million ad campaign calling out Obama over the now-defunct, government-subsidized maker of solar power components, Solyndra. But Obama’s ad pivots to praising the president for keeping “his promise to toughen ethics rules and strengthen America’s energy economy.”

While LaBolt said the AfP ads presented the Obama campaign “an opening” to highlight the president’s energy record, he also criticized Republicans for blocking 2010 legislation intended to blunt the impact of a Supreme Court ruling that year legalizing unlimited corporate spending on election ads.

And headed into the election year, House Democrats have begun championing a revived version of that bill, which would compel additional disclosure by super PACs and 501(c)4 groups airing election ads.

At a POLITICO Playbook breakfast last week, Pelosi predicted such reforms could staunch the flow of outside money into elections, but she also acknowledged that “most people don’t know that (the super PACs are) there and how they operate. They just see the result of it.” Yet, the Democratic leader — who has herself raised money for super PACs — said that, as she traveled lately “what I get the biggest response to is … when you talk about disclose and reform, people are very ready for it.”

In fact, Democrats believe that Republicans set the stage for a campaign debate over outside group spending because their presidential candidates repeatedly attacked one another during debates and on the trail over ads aired by rival super PACs.

However, it should be noted that the candidate who most dwelled on campaign finance arguments, Newt Gingrich, was soundly defeated during the Iowa caucus after his closing push was dominated by bitter complaints about the millions of dollars in attack ads against him being aired by the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC.

Gingrich, who was undoubtedly damaged by the ads, has since been buoyed by a deep-pocketed super PAC supporting him, and he won last week’s South Carolina primary with assistance from its anti-Romney ad campaign, while he remained mostly mum on the outside spending.

Indeed, it’s axiomatic in politics that when you start complaining about the process, it usually means you’re ignoring – or losing – broader arguments over issues about which voters care more.

The last time campaign spending gained traction as a leading issue in a presidential campaign was 2000, when both John McCain and Bill Bradley railed against the corrupting influence of money in politics during their campaigns for the Republican and Democratic nominations, respectively. Both ultimately lost, and, when McCain successfully campaigned for the GOP nomination eight years later, the campaign finance rhetoric mostly took a backseat to economic and national security themes.

Obama and his Democratic allies during the 2010 midterm elections assailed GOP-allied super PACs and other outside spending groups like Americans for Prosperity as corrupting the democratic process. But after the groups helped power Republicans to landslide victories, the White House backed away from its opposition and tacitly blessed a network of super PACs and non-disclosing 501(c)4 non-profits run by close allies to solicit big checks from wealthy liberals to try to level the playing field. Completing the reversal: the Obama campaign recently cleared its bundlers to raise money for pro-Obama outside groups.

Expect Republicans to hammer Obama for the reversal, with the Romney campaign test driving a possible hypocrisy attack in an interview with POLITICO.

“Barack Obama has single-handedly done more to destroy the finance system as it was than anybody else in the post-Watergate era,” said Romney strategist Stuart Stevens, referring to Obama’s broken promise to participate in the public financing system.

“He’s the only president to run for general election since post-Watergate reforms to throw those reforms out the window,” said Stevens. “He has absolutely no credibility to talk about this. More than anyone, he created this mess.”

Plus the attacks elevate the arguments being leveled by the GOP-allied outside groups, asserted Americans for Prosperity president Tim Phillips, whose group noted with pride that Obama’s ad was “in direct response” to its Solyndra ads.

And Phillips pointed out that Democrats have long had outside groups and labor unions working on their behalf – even before Obama began targeting Americans for Prosperity during the 2010 campaign.

“It was hypocritical two or three years ago to make that assault,” Phillips argued. “It’s just times two now with all the new groups they’ve formed on their side.”

- Reid Epstein contributed to this report.