Hillary’s Billions

Politics is a machine that never stops running. The announcement this week that the most powerful super PAC [Editor’s note: stands for Political Action Committee] in America is organizing a campaign to support Hillary Clinton is the most striking example. Priorities USA Action has decided to support the former secretary of state to Barack Obama, two years before the 2016 election and despite the fact that Hillary has not yet publicly expressed her intention to try again for the presidency. This news is so big that it was on the front page of the New York Times last Thursday.

At the same time that it announced that it would put its enormous firepower at Hillary’s service, Priorities USA Action was proceeding with an internal reorganization to place those close to Barack Obama, and those who led him to victory in 2012, in command of the super PAC. For example, Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, became co-chairman of the organization.

Super PACs are relatively new types of political organizations that are not limited in the amount of money that they can raise. They do not have the right, however, to coordinate their actions with those of the candidate that they support.

Priorities USA Action is primarily interested in contributors capable of cutting checks in the six- to seven-figure range. This is the same group that largely contributed to raising $1 billion for Barack Obama in 2012.

When Priorities USA Action launched its campaign, several more modestly-sized super PACs also backed Hillary Clinton, such as Ready for Hillary, led by two former Hillary campaign workers from 2008.

Jim Messina explained that one of the priorities of his group will be micro-targeting via televised ads, a technique developed during the last campaign that allowed the group to identify voters favorable to the candidate with significant precision.