Obama has leased his voter database to an advocacy group

[oragator1]

Should be interesting to see how effective this is for off cycle advocacy issues and for '14, but some groups have concerns over it happening at all.

President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has turned over its most valuable asset — a massive computer database containing personal data on millions of American voters — to a new advocacy group created to advance the White House agenda on issues ranging from gun control to immigration reform.
Organizing For Action (OFA), the advocacy group set up in recent weeks by the president’s top political aides, has already acquired access to the database under a leasing agreement with the Obama campaign, Katie Hogan, a former Obama campaign aide who is now serving as spokeswoman for the lobbying group, told NBC News. The information will be used to unleash an “army of the door knockers” to back the president’s legislative agenda as well as raise money for “issue ads” – particularly in crucial congressional districts, she said.
As an opening salvo, the group on Friday urged the president’s supporters to call members of Congress in support of Obama’s gun control proposals, even offering a sample script of what they should say.
The creation of OFA, which is being chaired by former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, is stirring controversy – both among public interest groups over the group’s plans to accept unlimited corporate donations, and among privacy advocates over the transfer of the database.


http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16726913-obama-campaign-gives-database-of-millions-of-supporters-to-new-advocacy-group?lite

[gator996]

Raises all sorts of concerns...


In a post-Citizen's United world this is now considered fair play in poltics...

Secret Donors Finance Fight Against Hagel

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/01/27/us/JP-HAGEL-1/JP-HAGEL-1-articleLarge.jpg

"A brand new conservative group calling itself Americans for a Strong Defense and financed by anonymous donors is running advertisements urging Democratic senators in five states to vote against Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee to be secretary of defense, saying he would make the United States “a weaker country.”

Another freshly minted and anonymously backed organization, Use Your Mandate, which presents itself as a liberal gay rights group but purchases its television time through a prominent Republican firm, is attacking Mr. Hagel as “anti-Gay,” “anti-woman” and “anti-Israel” in ads and mailers.

Those groups are joining at least five others that are organizing to stop Mr. Hagel’s confirmation, a goal even they acknowledge appears to be increasingly challenging. But the effort comes with a built-in consolation prize should it fail: depleting some of Mr. Obama’s political capital as he embarks on a new term with fresh momentum.

The media campaign to scuttle Mr. Hagel’s appointment, unmatched in the annals of modern presidential cabinet appointments, reflects the continuing effects of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which loosened campaign finance restrictions and was a major reason for the record spending by outside groups in the 2012 election. All told, these independent and largely secretly financed groups spent well over $500 million in an attempt to defeat Mr. Obama and the Democrats, a failure that seemed all the greater given the huge amounts spent."

[bluelang]

Standard operating procedure for both sides.

[JerseyGator01]

Actions like this make it quite easy to commit voter fraud on a grand scale given a lack of Voter ID laws in many states.

[vertigo0923]

I'm part of that data base ;)

[vertigo0923]

I think the Hagel ad is courtesy of a rightwing group.