Bill Maher's donation to "Obama super PAC" encourages democrats to live to fight another day against Citizens United

Comedian Bill Maher donated $1 million to the super PAC Priority USA Action, which supports President Obama, last week at the end of his most recent comedy special. Super PACs have no limit on how much individuales can donate and some don't require any sort of transparency on who donates. These PACs that are legally baned from cooperating with political campaigns have come under major scrutiny from both the left and the right.

Recently President Obama started to support Priority USA Action after previously speaking against the Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowing super PACs to accept large donations from both individuals and corporations.

Maher made the donation in an attempt to encourage other wealthy liberals to put their money where their mouth is. With republican supper PACs raising astronomical amounts of money PACs will be at war with each-other throughout the General Election. Both Obama and Maher's decision to support supper PACs even if they do not support their roles in the political sphere. They do so in order to live to fight another day.

Even though Obama does may not support the Citizens United Decision it is necessary for him and other demarcates to donate to these pacs if they stand a chance against republicans in the general election. If the demarcates drooped support of supper PACs they would essentially be handing over the election to the GOP. The attack ads that the PACs run have shown to be extremely detrimental to their opponents in the primaries and continue to do so. In oder to win the election democrats will have to match the fund raising of the GOP by playing their game. 


>If republicans win the Citizens United decision will most likely stand, if Obama wins he can once again drop his support of the decision and attempt to repeal it. Republicans have been giving the President flack about his flip flopping but I think it is one of the most wisest political decisions he has made on the campaign trail.

Apparently so does Maher "This is the wisest investment I think I could make." he said in a press release.   While Marer's donation was a bit theatrical it has potential to open up the flood gates to both small and large democratic donations.

Political pundits and have been criticizing Maher for claiming that it hurt him to give the $1 Million dollars and that he did so to encourage wealthier liberals who it won't hurt to donate more. His over dramatized presentation of his donation is differentially over the top as is Maher and his statements after the fact are pompous at best since Maher differentially makes a pretty penny from his HBO series, books, live appearances and comedy specials. I doubt that the money really hurt him as much as he would like to claim.



 Never the less his extremely public and talked about gesture has started a larger conversation about how the democratic party and their backers should spend their money No matter what is said about how he did it, what he said about it or his stance on Citizen United, he lit the green light for other liberals to throw their cash at democratic supper pacs without feeling dirty or embarrassed about it.