ADVERTISEMENT

Obama’s Dark Money Group Gets Free Pass

While media scrutinizes conservative donations

Flickr
January 18, 2013

President Barack Obama is repurposing his old campaign organization into an ambitious new entity that will help the White House achieve its agenda, according to the Los Angeles Times.

As he launches his second term, President Obama may get help from an ambitious new political organization being built out of his reelection campaign, a group that could reshape how future presidents harness supporters to press their White House agendas.

Run by former Obama campaign officials, the advocacy group will seek to leverage the campaign's sophisticated organizing tools and rich voter database to support the president's policy objectives, including raising the debt ceiling, gun control, and immigration reform.

The paper fails to note that the group will operate as a so-called "dark money" group until the end of the article.

The organization will be set up as a 501(c)4 social welfare group, according to top Democrats privy to the discussions. That structure allows it to accept unlimited contributions. … The pro-Obama group could voluntarily reveal its contributors, however.

The coverage of Obama’s dark money group is far less skeptical or probing than coverage of conservative 501(c)4 groups during the previous election cycle. The Los Angeles Times wrote about similar conservative nonprofit groups who have no obligation to reveal donors back in May. Their focus was on the Koch brothers who "bankroll a number of conservative organizations," according to the second paragraph.

Because these nonprofit groups are under no obligation to reveal their donors, the sources of their funding have remained a mystery.

The Koch brothers, with a combined net worth estimated by Forbes at $50 billion, are thought to be among the most generous backers of the efforts on the right. They have supported Americans for Prosperity, which, together with its sister foundation, plans to spend $151 million in the 2012 election.

Published under: Koch Brothers