J.B. Poersch (left) and Susan McCue are key players in the operation. | AP, John Shinkle Photos Senate Dems launch 'super PAC'

Top Democratic operatives are quietly building an aggressive campaign machine to battle huge Republican third-party spending and sway critical Senate races in 2012.

The strategists, including pros like longtime advisers to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are putting the finishing touches on a group called the Majority PAC, a “super PAC” that can raise unlimited money to attack or support candidates. It is modeled on the third-party operation, Patriot Majority PAC, which ran bruising TV ads against tea party candidates like Reid’s opponent, Sharron Angle, last year and mocked one of his prospective challengers, Sue Lowden, for suggesting she would be open to bartering chickens for health care.


The Majority PAC’s emergence comes at a pivotal time for Senate Democrats. Not only do they need to defend 23 seats to Republicans’ 10 this cycle, they also must woo Democratic donors alongside President Barack Obama, who is preparing for his own reelection bid in 2012.

The all-star team, already mapping out prospective targets, could emerge as the key attacker of Republicans in Democrats’ battle to hang onto the Senate in 2012.

While the Majority PAC will be required to disclose its donors, it will be affiliated with an organization that isn’t. So at least some of the money could hail from anonymous donors, a tactic Democrats bitterly decried last year.

The operation is in seasoned hands. Longtime Reid strategist Rebecca Lambe and Reid’s former chief of staff, Susan McCue, are leading the charge — along with Craig Varoga, who runs the Patriot Majority. Two other veteran political operatives who once led the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — J.B. Poersch and Jim Jordan — are also spearheading the effort, as are veteran Democratic fundraiser Monica Dixon and longtime Democratic attorney Marc Elias.

“The best Senate strategists in the country are coming together for 2012 to make sure Senate races have every tool needed to win,” said McCue, still one of Reid’s most trusted advisers. “We are approaching this as a team led by those who know how to win in the toughest, most competitive races across the country.”

Lambe and McCue have been powerful Reid advisers for years, helping lead the senator’s upset victory in Nevada last year. And Elias is a well-known Washington attorney who argued Al Franken’s successful recount fight before the Minnesota courts in 2009. Reid is not personally involved in this effort, sources say.

“This alignment is unprecedented,” McCue said.

In 2010, Jordan and Dixon ran a super PAC called Commonsense Ten, which spent more than $3 million in independent expenditures in several Senate races last cycle, including in Washington state, Colorado, Missouri and Kentucky. The Patriot Majority spent about $2 million last cycle, and it has pumped more than $25 million into 26 states since it was formed in December 2005. Poersch, who has close ties to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), served as executive director of the DSCC in the past three election cycles, when Democrats regained power in the Senate and managed to hold onto their majority last year after suffering deep losses at the polls.

With Democratic senators in New Mexico, Virginia and North Dakota announcing they won’t seek reelection, the numbers are stacked against Democrats in the fight to control the Senate, where they currently hold a 53-47 majority. Four of the Democratic seats in-cycle are in states where Obama lost in 2008: Montana, Missouri, West Virginia and Nebraska.

“It speaks to the desperate straits facing Senate Democrats that they’re now pinning their majority on the same shadowy interest groups that they so vehemently decried last fall,” said Brian Walsh, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Sources wouldn’t say how much money the Majority PAC intends to raise, but it appears to be positioning itself to raise the tens of millions of dollars necessary to become a major player across the country.

The new group comes along as two senior White House aides, Sean Sweeney and Bill Burton, have left the administration to develop their own consulting firm. Multiple sources expect the duo to form an outside group to bolster Obama’s reelection bid.

Democrats privately say they’ll need major support in 2012 from outside groups to combat the third-party spending that contributed to huge Republican wins across the country last year.

Excluding the national party committees, conservative groups spent an estimated $190 million last cycle, compared with $94 million spent by liberal groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending. Much of the spending was a result of the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission. That decision loosened restrictions on corporate and labor spending — including to groups registered under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, which can spend money on issues-based advertising without disclosing their donors.

Since the Majority PAC will be structured as a super PAC, it will have to disclose its donors to the public. But it will be allied with the Patriot Majority PAC 501(c)(4), which does not have to disclose its donors under federal law.

The structure could mirror American Crossroads, the brainchild of former Bush officials Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, which emerged as a very influential player last election when it spent more than $21 million — more than any other super PAC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Its affiliate organization, Crossroads GPS — operated as a 501(c)(4) — did not need to disclose the donors who fueled its $16 million in independent expenditures.

Democrats lodged angry protests last year that Republicans were running campaign efforts with secretive cash, but Democrats now privately acknowledge they must follow a similar tack to stay competitive in 2012.

“They are trying to replicate the kind of flexibility and leverage that American Crossroads had so they can maximize their ability to spend the money as they see fit but also minimize their disclosure to the degree necessary,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

But the Majority PAC says it will also serve to be a central ally to coordinate with Democratic-leaning groups in key states across the country.

“We are singularly focused on the Senate, and our reach will strengthen the entire progressive infrastructure,” McCue said. “It’s a critical step forward for Democrats.”