Hillary Rodham Clinton has begun personally courting donors for a super-political action committee supporting her candidacy, the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has fully embraced the independent groups that can accept unlimited checks from big donors, people familiar with Clinton's schedule said.
Her decision has the potential to transform the balance of power in presidential campaigning, where Republican outside groups have tended to outspend their Democratic counterparts.
Clinton's allies said they hope that with her support, the top Democratic super PAC, Priorities USA Action, will raise $200 million to $300 million. That is on par with what the largest Republican organizations, such as the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads super PAC and its nonprofit affiliate, spent in 2012.
Clinton is meeting with Priorities USA Action donors on her current fundraising swing for her campaign, which involves a three-day trip through California. One meeting was to have taken place in San Francisco on Wednesday and another in Los Angeles today, according to two people familiar with Clinton's schedule.
Running for re-election in 2012, President Barack Obama reluctantly endorsed fundraising by Priorities because of fears that he would be outspent by Republicans who were more aggressive in using what was then a new vehicle for raising large amounts of money that could be used in support of a campaign but not go directly to it. But he never appeared at any of its fundraisers.
Clinton planned to raise money for Priorities in her campaign but initially delayed doing so because of her desire to carefully pace her campaign's start, her pledge to make a campaign-finance overhaul a critical issue, and a dispute about the super PAC's management structure, the people said.
But supporters became anxious in recent weeks that she was squandering the enthusiasm generated by her official campaign announcement.
Two leading Republican contenders have delayed officially entering the campaign, devoting their time to personally soliciting money for super PACs set up by their aides. One of them, Jeb Bush, has moved to shift costs such as policy research and voter data maintenance to nonprofits that are formally independent of their campaign efforts.
The Clinton campaign and Priorities officials would not confirm the California events, but a campaign official acknowledged that Clinton and her aides planned to do what they could to help the super PAC, within the law.
"With some Republican candidates reportedly setting up and outsourcing their entire campaign to super PACs, and the Koch brothers pledging $1 billion alone for the 2016 campaign, Democrats have to have the resources to fight back," said one Clinton campaign official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to explain the campaign's thinking. "There is too much at stake for our future for Democrats to unilaterally disarm."
Super PACs, which grew out of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010 and other legal and regulatory shifts, were new and largely untested in the 2012 presidential campaign. Three years later, they have already become central to the 2016 campaign.
Bush, the former Florida governor, has spent most of his first months raising money for a super PAC started by his allies. The group is expected to raise $100 million by the end of June.
As a declared candidate, Clinton is prohibited from directly asking donors for more than $5,000 for a super PAC. But under current Federal Election Commission rules, she can appear at events for donors, and even speak, as long as requests for larger amounts are made outside her presence.
Like her Republican opponents, Clinton also will be competing against her own party for the attention of her party's biggest donors because of legislation passed in December that allows party leaders to solicit million-dollar checks on behalf of the Democratic and Republican National Committees and congressional campaign committees.
A Section on 05/07/2015