Major donors concluding that Obama wants to cut off funds to outside groups, especially media 527s. Obama: Don't fund independent groups

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is steering the candidate’s wealthy supporters away from independent Democratic groups, calling into question what had been expected to be the groups’ central role in this year’s Democratic offensive against Senator John McCain.

Obama’s national finance chairwoman, Chicago hotel mogul Penny Pritzker, told supporters at a national finance committee meeting in Indianapolis May 2, and in other conversations, not to give money to the groups, people familiar with her comments said.


“From the beginning of this race Obama has told supporters that if they want to help his effort, they should do so through his campaign,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton, who confirmed that Pritzker has told donors not to give to the groups. “And he means exactly what he says.”

Most presidential candidates say they don't encourage the outside groups, and donors are accustomed to taking those words with a grain of salt. The candidates' words are typically seen as mere legal defenses against allegations that the campaigns are illicitly coordinating with outside groups.

The donors have been considering entreaties from Progressive Media USA, run by conservative-journalist turned liberal media critic David Brock; from former Clinton aide John Podesta’s Fund for America; and from America Votes, a group backed by billionaire George Soros that focuses on voter mobilization, among other efforts.

But in recent days, major donors have begun to conclude that Obama is serious in trying to cut off funds to the outside groups.

“It’s given donors pause,” said one prominent Democratic donor of Pritzker’s words.

Donors and Democratic activists have been quietly debating Obama’s motives: Is he simply interested in keeping his Democratic efforts within his campaign, which is so well funded he doesn’t need outside help? Or is he, as some believe, cutting off funds to groups whose leaders — Brock and Podesta — some Obama aides view as too tightly linked to Clinton?

In either case, Pritzker’s words are the latest in Obama’s remarkably swift and complete consolidation of Democratic Party power. It’s an unprecedented seizure of control that has built him, over the course of a year, the most powerful field organization and the largest financial network in American politics, leaving many existing structures — traditional party organizations in many states, the Clintons’ long-nurtured national network — in the dust.

Just last summer, Matt Bai’s widely accepted analysis identified the “billionaires” and the “bloggers” as the key, emergent players in the Democratic Party’s infrastructure. But Obama has marginalized both groups. Pritzker’s words are part of a move to keep Obama’s grip on the sole important funnel of Democratic money this year. And his campaign has largely ignored the existing network of liberal bloggers, and actively opposes their embrace of fierce partisanship.

“Obama has created a number of significant infrastructure pieces through his campaign, displacing traditional groups the way he promised he would by signaling the end of the old politics of division and partisanship,” the blogger Matt Stoller wrote recently of Obama’s “consolidation of the party,” which he called “stunning.”

Many of the figures Obama has shut out have, sometimes grudgingly, embraced the sheer effectiveness of his organization, and his potential to create a lasting new Democratic majority. The open question is whether Obama’s movement is about something more than the candidate, and whether it will cohere after he wins or loses in November.

“Will the Obama movement be a real movement that pushes its leader to keep his promises?” Micah Sifry wrote recently on the blog TechPresident. “Or will it be more of a personalized movement of followers attracted to a charismatic star?”

Obama’s campaign has been remarkably effective so far this year at maintaining a coherent message, built around Obama’s biography and his appeal for a new kind of politics. Part of his success has been tight message discipline: The campaign has been virtually leak-free, and the line of control from Obama to his chief strategist David Axelrod to campaign manager (and Axelrod business partner) David Plouffe is unchallenged.

Many involved in the independent efforts find it hard to quibble with that success, and may have second thoughts about continuing that work over Obama’s explicit objection.

“If he were to make a definitive statement, we’d have to think hard about it,” said one.

The campaign’s opposition to the outside groups is, donors and activists said, being felt more sharply by the groups established to attack McCain through television advertising, as the lavishly funded Media Fund attacked Bush in 2004.

Brock, the chairman of Progressive Media USA, declined to comment on Obama’s stance.

Martin Frost, the president of America Votes, also suggested that the Obama campaign stance had had more impact on media groups than on ones focused on turnout.

“We’re continguing with our fundraising and things have been going well for us,” he said. “You really need to ask someone who’s dealing with the media aspect.”

But Democrats who support the work of the media 527s say Obama’s making a mistake. Progressive Media USA has aired anti-McCain television ads and developed a website intended to be a hub for negative information about McCain.

“Obama needs a bass line to the melody of his positive message,” said a Democratic strategist who backs the group’s aims.