Reuters reports the low fundraising numbers for an Obama Super PAC, Priorities USA, prompted the decision by the campaign to support the Super PAC, after a meeting between campaign manager Jim Messina and Obama strategist David Axelrod:
"We've got to talk about this. This is a problem," Messina told Axelrod, according to a campaign official.
Roughly a month later, on February 6, the Obama campaign announced it would start supporting Priorities USA Action, the struggling Super PAC formed to help Obama. The move reversed a plan rooted in Obama's distaste for a Supreme Court decision that allowed such independent groups to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to try to influence elections.
If there were any lingering questions about why Obama's campaign changed course, they were answered late on Monday.
Priorities USA raised a paltry $59,000 in January, Federal Election Commission filings showed, and that amount came almost entirely from one longtime Obama supporter, John W. Rogers, who donated $50,000.