Obama's Super PAC Scrambles for Big Donors

Now that President Obama has changed his tune on his super PAC, officials at Priorities USA Action have kicked into overdrive attempting to recruit deep-pocketed liberal donors who have largely been inactive since 2004. Ex-Obama aides held dozens of meetings with potential donors in LA, New York, and elsewhere yesterday, the New York Times reports, including a gaggle of executives from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Fundraisers said they expected a boost because Obama had now made it clear he wanted the PAC to succeed.

"This is the strongest signal that the campaign has ever sent," says one Democrat advising several top party donors, saying they were "relieved and thrilled" by the announcement. Haim Saban, an occasional Obama critic but longtime Democratic donor, said he was "looking at all the super PACs" and would "surely participate" somehow. On the other hand, the Wall Street Journal reports that many financial industry players have jumped to Mitt Romney, and that longtime Dem stalwarts George Soros and Peter Lewis plan on largely sitting out this election. (More Priorities USA Action stories.)