just a quick note for reference, something to keep an eye on.

 

As a result, Obama has found it more difficult to raise money. He has $140 million so far, suggesting that it will be hard for his campaign to match its 2008 numbers, much less its ridiculous rumored projection of $1 billion. The campaign has become more desperate as the money has dried up. You see it in the U-turn on Super PACs, which have gone from threatening democracy to being an integral part in the president’s reelection effort. You see it in the questionable characters that show up in the lists of Obama donors and bundlers: The two brothers of a Mexican fugitive; the former Democratic congressman and registered lobbyist who says he was never a lobbyist; a king of short sales connected to the call girl for client number nine; the founder of Def Jam Records; and Anna Wintour.

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Roughly a month later, on Feb. 6, the Obama campaign announced it would start supporting Priorities USA Action, the struggling Super PAC formed to help Obama. The move reversed a position rooted in Obama’s distaste for the 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.

The disappointing figures were a sharp contrast with the tens of millions of dollars raised by the political action committees, or PACs, that support Republican presidential candidates.

The results reinforced concerns among Obama’s advisers that despite his campaign’s fundraising strength, Republican PACs could help the opposition outspend the president’s re-election efforts this year.

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