President Obama prominently denounced the Citizens United decision during his 2010 State of the Union speech, but his campaign now supports a Super PAC.

The manager of President Obama’s re-election effort is defending the campaign’s decision to back a so-called super PAC, despite the president’s fierce criticism of the Supreme Court decision which led to the proliferation of such shadowy influence groups.

The Obama campaign is supporting Priorities USA, a super PAC founded by two former Obama White House aides, says Jim Messina in an email to supporters sent late Monday night.

“We decided to do this because we can’t afford for the work you’re doing in your communities, and the grassroots donations you give to support it, to be destroyed by hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads,” Messina tells supporters.

During his 2010 State of the Union address, Obama famously denounced the ruling, Citizens United, which swept away decades of campaign-finance regulation and paved the way for today’s multitude of super PACs, many backing Republican candidates and causes.

Messina acknowledges the support for a super PAC is “a real risk.”

“In 2011, the Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney raised $30 million from fewer than 200 contributors. Ninety-six percent of what they’ve spent so far, more than $18 million, has been on attack ads. The main engine of Romney’s campaign has an average contribution of roughly $150,000,” he says. ” … The stakes are too important to play by two different sets of rules. If we fail to act, we concede this election to a small group of powerful people intent on removing the President at any cost.”

A recent Washington Post report finds that conservative-powered super PACs could make the eventual GOP nominee much more competitive against Obama in November.

Messina, however, also seeks to temper the influence of super PACs with the small-dollar donors backing Obama’s re-election bid.

“That’s why it’s up to us — the grassroots organization — to win this election where we have the real advantage, and that’s on the ground,” he says. “More than 1.3 million Americans have already donated. Our average donation is $55, and 98 percent are $250 or less.”

Scott Nance is the editor and publisher of the news site The Washington Current. He has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

Donald Trump certainly enjoys keeping the media spinning. If he’s considering running for president on the independent ticket, as he has hinted at frequently of late, he’s hedging bets on whether to endorse Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. It’s a freakin’ endorsement circus…

Newt Gingrich’s campaign is reported to be in “serious disarray,” while the Las Vegas Review Journal reports today that a “new poll shows Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney headed for a blowout victory Saturday in Nevada’s GOP caucuses.”

Honestly this primary season has been like watching a very bad sitcom… And I don’t like to watch TV.

With Republican Mitt Romney’s landslide win in the Florida presidential primary powered by a massive number of negative ads, President Obama’s 2012 campaign staff have begun worrying about the eventual influence of so-called Super PACs in the November election.

And the folks back in Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters have reason for concern, according to a new report.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina fired off a fundraising appeal to supporters Wednesday specifically citing the influence of these largely unregulated organizations in Romney’s victory over GOP rival Newt Gingrich.

Messina notes that Romney and the groups supporting him outspent Gingrich and organizations on his side in the Sunshine State by $15.3 million to $3.4 million. Romney and influence groups loyal to him put 13,000 advertisements on the air on Romney’s behalf as of mid-week last week. Gingrich had only about 200, Messina says. Some 92 percent of these ads that were negative, he says.

“That’s ugly, and it tells us a lot about what to expect from Romney if he wins the Republican nomination. They’re going to try to spend and smear their way to the White House,” Messina says.

These Super PACs, which proliferated in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling which struck down most campaign finance regulation, have narrowed the gap between what the president and his supporters can spend and what Republicans their backers can., according to a report published Wednesday by The Washington Post.

“The emerging pattern suggests that Obama may have an increasingly difficult time staying ahead of his competitors in the money race this year, particularly after Republicans coalesce around one candidate focused on winning the White House. That contender will almost certainly receive a surge of contributions from Republicans who want to beat Obama,” the Post says.

The Obama re-election campaign is ready to fight back, however, Messina says.

“These super PACs can dominate the airwaves, but what they can’t do is mobilize volunteers on the ground,” he says. “And that’s how we’re going to win.”

The Obama camp’s focus on the ground game could mean hiring a new field organizer, paying the rent for a field office, or putting together an online training for new volunteers, Messina’s email says.

“The Florida primary will be a turning point in this race — the other side is looking at what could be months of brutal, negative tactics that turn people off to politics altogether,” Messina says. “We’re spending that time building a campaign to win in November.”

Scott Nance is the editor and publisher of the news site The Washington Current. He has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

The White House released this photo of President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other senior members of his administration all awaiting updates during the raid which killed Osama bin Laden.

A former White House adviser during the Clinton administration is striking back at Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s assertion that “any president would have done” the operation President Obama ordered last year which resulted in the death of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

The former Massachusetts governor last month argued: “With regards to Osama bin Laden, we’re delighted that [Obama] gave the order to take out Osama bin Laden, any president would have done that. But this one did and that’s a good thing.”

Obama last May ordered a strike by U.S. commandos on the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden had been living, which resulted in the death of the al Qaeda leader who had planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Robert Weiner, a former Clinton White House spokesman and former senior congressional aide; and Richard Mann, senior analyst at Robert Weiner Associates, make a case that Romney’s statement that “any president” would have given the order that launched the raid that killed bin Laden is false.

They contrast President George W. Bush’s decision to farm out a raid on bin Laden’s 2001 Tora Bora location at the time in Afghanistan to Afghan forces who failed in their mission, to Obama’s U.S. solo action a decade later that succeeded when Obama did not reveal the strategy ahead of time.

Weiner and Mann, wrote an article featured as the lead front page piece in Sunday’s Naples(Fla.) Daily News opinion section, “‘ANY PRESIDENT’ WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME’ AS OBAMA? Romney’s Remark About Ordering Raid on bin Laden is Wrong: Ask Bush about Tora Bora.”

Weiner and Mann document their claim with information including a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, “TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN.”

In the article, Weiner and Mann say, “When placed in a similar situation with parallel choices, George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor, failed to succeed because he made the opposite decision. In December 2001, Bush had the chance to capture bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, was faced with the choice of doing it ourselves or involving a foreign government, and blew it by asking the Afghanis to do it. Whether by ineptness or intent, the Afghani troops allowed bin Laden to escape.”

Weiner and Mann show how Obama’s approach was totally different. “When Obama was questioned as why he did not inform the Pakistanis in advance about Abbottabad, he said, ‘I didn’t tell most people here in the White House. I didn’t tell my own family. It was that important for us to maintain operational security.’ When asked during the 2006 presidential campaign debates what he would do with ‘actionable intelligence’, he said he would indeed have the United States ‘act unilaterally’ rather than in consort with foreign intelligence if necessary to capture bin Laden. That’s precisely what he did.”

The authors quote the 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report: “The Committee says its review ‘removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.’ The Committee Chair expressed the ‘hope that we can learn from the mistakes of the past.’ Obama did,” say Weiner and Mann.

They conclude, “The debate moderators and news media as a whole have only allowed the Republicans to differentiate from each other and not from the President’s successes when it comes to foreign policy. With the primary field coming to Florida for the Jan. 31 vote, it is time for the moderators to ask the Republicans if they have any real alternative that would have succeeded as Obama did in taking down Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi or for that matter, on domestic policy, where Obama reversed the Bush bleeding of 750,000 jobs per month, rescued the auto industry and the nation’s financial institutions, and put the country back to 22 straight months of increased jobs and improved GDP.”

Scott Nance is the editor and publisher of the news site The Washington Current. He has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

Via MSNBC:

Newt Gingrich has won the South Carolina Republican primary, capping off a remarkable comeback for his presidential bid that reshapes the trajectory of the battle for the GOP nomination…

[...] The results mark the end of a tumultuous week in politics that saw Gingrich erase and then overcome the lead Romney had in the Palmetto State following his victory in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary. Gingrich came on strong in the closing days of the campaign, looking to rally under his banner the many conservatives unwilling to get behind Romney, who had sought to posture himself as the eventual nominee.

Mitt Romney indeed thought he had it in the bag… He didn’t. Newt Gingrich’s win in S.C. changes the game quite a bit for the GOP race for the presidential nomination. Stay tuned…

Rick Perry will be dropping out of the GOP race for the presidential nomination today, and sources say he “will make the announcement before the CNN debate in South Carolina” tonight.

South Carolina’s primary is to be held on Saturday. Sources have told Politico that Perry is “expected to endorse Newt Gingrich,” and ”Gingrich and Perry had a secret meeting to discuss a possible endorsement.”

Politico notes that Perry’s endorsement “gives the surging Gingrich a huge boost heading into the final debate tonight, and the South Carolina primary on Saturday, in which he’s already closing in on Mitt Romney.”

But wait… Last night Drudge broke the news that ABC News has an exclusive interview with Newt’s ex-wife Marianne Gingrich and “her explosive revelations are set to rock the trail.” The Gingrich campaign is now in full on damage control mode, before ABC airs the interview on Nightline tonight.

Perry’s endorsement could mean diddly to conservative Newt Gingrich at this point, despite Newt’s rise in the South Carolina polls.

Stay tuned…

Mitt Romney recently said that his tax rate is about 15% when pressed yet again about releasing his tax returns. Here’s a couple of must reads about Mitt and his money…

Romney Parks Millions in Offshore Tax Haven

Mitt Romney Sent Millions to Mormon Church…

Odds look good for Mitt to become the GOP nominee, although other candidates are holding on for dear life. One right wing blogger suggests Rick Perry should drop out now and become a “kingmaker.” Stay tuned…

Perhaps Mitt thinks he’ll just buy his way to the White House…

Video of the Day… via Politico:

“If the far right thought that Romney could win, they might be more enthusiastic about him,” Pelosi told POLITICO’s Mike Allen during Tuesday’s Playbook Breakfast. “But they question what he stands for and they don’t think he’s going to win. So what’s the sell? I’m not sure he knows what he stands for, and that makes it harder too.”

I have to say, I agree 100% with Nancy Pelosi… Romney can’t win and the GOP knows it!

If Facebook users decided the election, President Obama would be easily winning a second term in the White House. Meanwhile, heading into Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, traffic on the social media website appears to indicate the GOP nomination coming down to a three-man race among Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

This is according to an analysis and research of Facebook usage from Dec. 10 through Jan. 8 by Socialbakers, a social-media analytics company.

Among candidates, the president has more than 24 million Facebook “fans,” far more than that of his nearest rival, Mitt Romney, who has about 1.3 million. Texas Rep. Ron Paul has 672,483 fans; former House speaker Newt Gingrich has 223,558; Texas Gov. Rick Perry has nearly 180,000; former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has fewer than 41,000; and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman has only 30,622.

But Santorum, whose campaign surged to a near-tie in Iowa caucuses, increased his fan base by 107 percent, followed by Paul at 14 percent and Romney at 7 percent. Santorum leads the top three candidates in number of posts shared – six times more than Paul and five times more than Romney.

For Santorum and Paul, posts that include a link have the most number of interactions (“likes” and comments), followed by posts with photos. For Romney, status updates have the most number of interactions, followed by posts with photos.

The top three candidates have shared an average of 19 videos on Facebook, with Santorum leading with 36 video posts.

Santorum averaged an 11 percent monthly increase in fans, followed by Paul at 8 percent and Romney at 3 percent. Santorum more than tripled his “People Talking About” metric between November and December, while Paul nearly doubled his “People Talking About” during the same period.

Most Engaging Posts

Socialbakers looked at which single Facebook post was most engaging for the candidates.

For President Obama, that came December 15, in the form of a new family portrait. This picture of the first family generated nearly 87,000 “Likes” and almost 16,000 comments.

Romney’s most engaging post was published December 30: “This President spends a lot of time apologizing for America. He should be apologizing to America.” It generated 26,004 “Likes” and 2,620 comments.

Paul’s was his Christmas Day message: “Merry Christmas everyone. Wishing you the best with your family and loved ones today,” which generated 22,406 “Likes” and 2,969 comments.

For Gingrich, it came December 2. It was a message which read: “Two hours after I’m sworn in as President, and by the time Obama lands in Chicago, I will have forty percent of Obama’s government dismantled,” and includes a video link to a Gingrich interview by Sean Hannity of Fox News.

Santorum’s most engaging post was a December 13 reaction to the cancellation of a proposed GOP debate by Donald Trump. It generated just 822 “Likes” and 63 comments.

Scott Nance is the editor and publisher of the news site The Washington Current. He has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

by WALTER BRASCH

One of the fun things sports writers do is try to predict the winners and scores of upcoming games, from high school through the pros. For special “look-at-us-we’re important” bonus points, they create lists of “Top” teams and rank them, both pre-season and weekly.

Sports writers have some kind of genetic mutation that leads them to believe they know more about sports than the average schlump who spends almost $200 a year for a newspaper subscription and as much as $500 a year for all-access all-games everywhere cable coverage. However, the reality is that even the best prognosticators—sports writers love big words when they can pronounce them—have a record about as accurate as the horoscope on the comics page.

Nevertheless, the guesses and rankings by sportswriters are usually innocuous. Readers and viewers usually forget in a couple of days who says what, and go about their own lives trying to make a mediocre paycheck stretch until the end of the month.

Joining the “guess how bright I am” journalists are some reporters who cover national political races. Instead of researching and explaining candidate positions on numerous issues, and giving readers and viewers a greater understanding of how those positions could impact their own lives, these pompous scribblers have made politics another sports contest.

The national news media, secure in their perches in New York and Washington, D.C., several months ago began chirping about who will win the Iowa caucus. For the final few days, they parachuted into Iowa to let their readers and viewers think they were toughened field reporters with as difficult a job as combat correspondents in Iraq or Afghanistan. Like hungry puppies, they stayed close to the candidates, hoping for a morsel or two, digested it, passed it out of their system as wisdom, and haughtily predicted the winner would be Mitt Romney—no, wait—it’s Michele Bachman—no, we’re calling for a surprising victory by Herman Cain—stop-the-presses, Cain petered out—Newt Gingrich is definitely going to take Iowa—Rick Perry is our prediction— we predict Ron Paul might be ahead—the race is going to be tough, but based upon our superior knowledge because we’re the national news media and we’re infallible, and from projections we picked out of our butts we believe—.

The one candidate they discounted for almost all but the last week of the Iowa primary race was Rick Santorum. Not a chance, they declared. Weak campaign. Lack of funds. No charismatic razzle-dazzle. No vital signs. Dead as a 2-by-4 about to be sawed and covered by wallboard.

Santorum, of course, came within eight votes of taking the Iowa caucus. The news media then spent the next day telling us all about that campaign, much in the same way that a bubbly TV weather girl, who a week earlier predicted bright sunny skies for a week, tells us we had snow the past three days.

The national news media jetted out of Iowa faster than a gigolo leaving a plain rich girl for a plain richer one, and descended upon New Hampshire. In the granite state, they have been repeating their performance from Iowa. They have predicted who the “real” winners and losers are. They have tried to convince us they can actually talk to us common folk, so they are grabbing whoever they find to answer in less than ten seconds, “Who do you think will win?” After the New Hampshire primary concludes, Tuesday, the media will happily discard their snow coats for windbreakers and descend into South Carolina, where they will continue to treat a presidential race as little more than a sporting contest.

There’s a difference, however. Generally, whoever wins or loses a game doesn’t have much impact upon the rest of us, so we smile at the sportswriters’ attempts to predict outcomes and pretend they can analyze the impact of a reserve left tackle’s hangnail. Those who are elected to our city councils, state legislatures, Congress, and the Presidency do have an impact upon us. And we deserve a lot better than the arrogance of the news clan reporting the contests as if they were sporting events.

[Walter Brasch was a sportswriter and sports editor before becoming an award-winning public affairs/investigative reporter and columnist, who has covered several presidential campaigns. He was once a reporter for an Iowa newspaper. His current book is the critically-acclaimed social issues mystery-thriller, Before the First Snow.]