"President Obama eyes super PAC showdown"

ALEXANDER BURNS and MAGGIE HABERMAN (Politico):

National Democrats are banking on a long-shot strategy to shield President Barack Obama from an expected onslaught of outside GOP spending in the 2012 election: nuking the messengers.
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Democrats acknowledge that matching those groups dollar for dollar will be a difficult challenge — Crossroads alone may spend up to $300 million on all 2012 federal races, including the presidential contest. Instead, the president’s campaign and the Obama-sanctioned super PAC Priorities USA Action are attempting to undercut the spending by tainting it in the minds of voters, linking it to oil magnates and other unpopular corporate interests.

“We had always prepared for special interests to spend a half-billion dollars in an attempt to defeat the president,” Obama press secretary Ben LaBolt said. “We’re asking our supporters to invest now to allow us to build the largest grass-roots campaign in history. And we’ve made clear that we will not unilaterally disarm.”

The fight between Obama and Republican outside groups has, for now, overshadowed the more traditional contest between the parties’ official nominees: in this case Obama and the likely GOP candidate, Mitt Romney. That has presented a problem for Obama and his allies, both in defining their enemy (or enemies) and raising money to fight them. MORE...