Obama Team Reunites for a Last Campaign: Court Nominee

Judge Merrick B. Garland with President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the Rose Garden at the White House on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — President Obama has said for years that he has finished his last campaign. But you would not know it by looking at the team he has assembled to push for his Supreme Court nominee.

The Constitutional Responsibility Project, which was formed to lead the fight to get the nominee, Judge Merrick B. Garland, confirmed, is a virtual who’s who of Mr. Obama’s two presidential campaigns.

Stephanie Cutter, who served as deputy campaign manager in 2012, will run the organization. Anita Dunn, the former White House communications director, is handling media, along with Amy Brundage, a veteran Obama aide. Also involved are Julianna Smoot, the chief fund-raiser for Mr. Obama’s campaigns, and Paul Tewes, his star field operative in 2008.

Founded within the last several weeks as a nonprofit organization, the project will accept donations, develop advertising, coordinate messaging, help manage operatives in the field, respond to attacks on Judge Garland and collect opposition research on Republican opponents.

On Thursday, the group is organizing a nationwide “stakeholder” conference call hosted by Mr. Obama for what organizers said would include thousands of the president’s supporters.

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The Constitutional Responsibility Project is essentially a miniature version of Obama for America — the formal name of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign operation — with a more focused mission. And it is a first-ever effort to impose a disciplined, top-down leadership structure on the constellation of liberal organizations that usually wage the fight on behalf of a Democratic court nominee.

“The Constitutional Responsibility Project was founded to coordinate the hundreds of allies and empower the millions of Americans in states across the country who believe Senate Republicans should do their jobs and fulfill their constitutional duty,” the group says on a new website, Weneednine.org.

Ms. Cutter and the other Obama alumni have held strategy meetings twice a week with representatives of MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, Americans United for Change, People for the American Way, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and others.

But that cooperation may be difficult to maintain over an extended period if, as expected, Republicans refuse for months to even consider Judge Garland’s nomination.

Money raised by the project may hamper fund-raising by the liberal groups themselves, which in the past have used Supreme Court fights as a way to motivate their supporters and fill their coffers. Even if the project funnels some of the money it raises to the groups, there will still be a competition for resources.

Officials at those groups, who in the past have operated more freely, may begin to clash with the direction offered by the Obama veterans.

And there could be differences in approach when it comes to messaging and advertising. Some groups may want to produce attack ads aimed at Republican senators who refuse to consider Judge Garland’s nomination. Others may favor softer approaches focused on the judge’s personal background.

How the former Obama officials navigate those differences could determine how much grumbling there is among the groups.

Source by: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/obama-team-reunites-for-a-last-campaign-court-nominee/ar-BBqA3OT