by Dave Levinthal | Center for Public Integrity

Hillary Clinton fashions herself as the ultimate general in a war against big-money politics.

“You’re not going to find anybody more committed to aggressive campaign finance reform than me,” Clinton said following the New Hampshire primary.

But the Democratic presidential front-runner stands poised to bludgeon her general election opponent with Republicans’ favorite political superweapon: the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which earlier this decade launched a new era of unbridled fundraising.

Clinton’s massive campaign machine is built of the very stuff — super PACs, secret cash, unlimited contributions — she says she’ll attack upon winning the White House.

Indeed, a Center for Public Integrity investigation reveals that Clinton’s own election efforts are largely immune from her reformist platform. While Clinton rails against “unaccountable money” that is “corrupting our political system,” corporations, unions and nonprofits bankrolled by unknown donors have already poured millions of dollars into a network of Clinton-boosting political organizations. That’s on top of the tens of millions an elite club of Democratic megadonors, including billionaires George Soros and Haim Saban, have contributed.

Far from denouncing their support, Clinton has embraced it, personally wooing potential super PAC donors and dispatching former President Bill Clinton and campaign manager John Podesta on similar missions.

Several of the big-money groups crucial to the Clinton-for-president effort are led or advised by one man, Clinton scourge-turned-disciple David Brock, who’s also seized control of — and defanged, former staffers say — a prominent, nonpartisan watchdog group that helped lay groundwork for what’s become the Clinton email server scandal. Each of the groups plays a specific role, from advertising to opposition research, in bolstering the Hillary for America campaign committee Clinton herself leads.

Clinton’s campaign argues it “cannot afford to unilaterally disarm” and quit the big-money game. That, they say, is because powerful conservative interests, most notably the secretive outfits backed by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch, plan to support the Republican presidential nominee with hundreds of millions of dollars. Republican front-runner Donald Trump, himself a billionaire, is burning his own wealth as campaign fuel.

“When she is elected president, Hillary Clinton will make it a priority to restore a government of, by and for the people,” spokesman Josh Schwerin told the Center for Public Integrity.

Not satisfactory, say some prominent liberals, whose reactions range from underwhelmed to apoplectic.

They cite Bernie Sanders as proof a Democratic presidential candidate can contend in elections mostly on the strength of small-dollar donations — and without cultivating support from super PACs and billionaires.

Clinton’s supposedly reform-minded campaign, they continue, has instead tolerated, if not encouraged, a Democratic operation akin to what the Koch brothers have wrought.

“It’d be like tobacco companies coming out and saying they wanted to fight against lung cancer,” said Dylan Ratigan, the former MSNBC television host and author of New York Times bestseller Greedy Bastards, who hasn’t yet endorsed a presidential candidate. “In a way, the Koch brothers have more credibility than Clinton on election money issues — they’re at least upfront about how they want to use money to buy politics.”

A Center for Public Integrity/Ipsos poll conducted in late February indicates many potential general election voters are likewise concerned about how serious Clinton is about remaking the nation’s campaign system —a monumental challenge under any circumstance, but a goal supported by the vast majority of Americans.

Half of all poll respondents overall — and nearly four in 10 self-identified Democrats — said Clinton is relying on super PACs and big money too much. That compares to 18 percent overall who said Clinton is relying on them the “right amount” and 5 percent who said “too little.”

And when asked, “If elected president, which of the following would do the most to reform the campaign finance system and make it less reliant on big money?” Clinton trailed both Sanders and Trump among respondents.

Hillary Clinton describes campaign finance reform as one of her campaign’s “four fights.”

But about half of all respondents in a new Center for Public Integrity/Ipsos poll — and nearly four in 10 Democrats — say Clinton’s campaign is too reliant on super PACs and big money.

Clinton is having a difficult time convincing prospective voters that she’s not part of the system, and therefore, not part of the problem, Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson explained. “Clinton’s lack of traction of on campaign finance reform illustrates that Americans increasingly do not buy campaign promises,” he said.

The situation has frightened some conservatives, who see Clinton evolving into a sort of Madam Strangelove, worrying little about lefty protestations while learning to love her backers’ money bombs. Almost never, they note, does Clinton speak ill — or at all — of the specific super PACs supporting her and itching to damage Republicans.

And she almost never speaks out against pro-Clinton money that’s difficult, if not impossible, to trace to a flesh-and-blood source, such as corporate treasury dollars or donations from “social welfare” nonprofits that may, by law, hide their own contributors from public view.

Call it pragmatism, call it ruthlessness. By any name, Clinton’s acceptance of big-money politics means trouble for Republicans, who’ve been reveling all decade in the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

The ruling freed corporations, unions and certain nonprofits to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for and against political candidates. Conservatives have embraced Citizens United more widely than liberals, many of whom consider poorly regulated political money a poison that weakens democracy.

What initially prompted the high court’s decision? A dispute over a decidedly anti-Clinton movie that a conservative nonprofit organization called Citizens United wanted to broadcast during the 2008 presidential primaries.

“Wouldn’t you know that Hillary Clinton has become one of the greatest beneficiaries of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision,” Citizens United President David Bossie said. “It is an irony that is not lost on me.”

A ‘Milky Way’ of Clinton groups During the 2016 election cycle, most presidential candidates have enjoyed support from super PACs created for one reason: to supercharge the candidates’ campaigns. The development represents the full flourishing of a trend that began during the 2012 presidential election. While technically separate from the campaigns they back — federal law prohibits super PACs and campaigns from coordinating most spending — the super PACs are legally independent, but often run by friends, associates or former staffers of the presidential candidate being supported. And Clinton has been a trailblazer: Three cash-flush super PACs, stacked with Clinton allies, exist almost exclusively to strengthen Clinton’s presidential effort. Priorities USA Action, for example, is an advertising juggernaut that’s already spent millions helping Clinton secure the Democratic nomination. Ready for Hillary PAC (now Ready PAC) organizes and collects information from grassroots supporters. Correct the Record serves as a political SWAT unit attacking those who attack Clinton. A fourth super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, aides Democratic candidates in general with opposition research — and was praised by Clintonat its outset. That group’s recent efforts largely focus on researching, tracking, embarrassing and damaging candidates competing in the Republican presidential primary. Barring a contested Republican National Convention where a non-candidate fantastically becomes the nominee, one will face Clinton in the general election. These four core pro-Clinton super PACs have together raised more than $86 million toward Election 2016, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of the groups’ most recent filings with federal regulators. The true figure is almost certainly larger — significantly larger — because three of the four super PACs haven’t yet disclosed money they’ve raised since Jan. 1. Of this known haul, about $14 million collectively — about one of every six dollars raised — comes from dozens of corporate, union or nonprofit sources. Tracking these contributions to a human source ranges from relatively easy to effectively impossible. And these pro-Clinton super PACs are intimately linked.

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