Eliana Johnson:
There isn’t even a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign yet, and already the sort of vicious infighting that brought down her 2008 campaign is underway. It sprang to the surface on Monday when David Brock, the founder of the liberal group Media Matters as well as the pro-Clinton PAC American Bridge angrily resigned his board membership at another pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action. Like the political-action committees that have been established in recent months by the potential Republican candidates, from Jeb Bush to Chris Christie to Scott Walker, a trio of pro-Clinton groups, Media Matters, American Bridge, and Priorities USA, are together serving as a nascent campaign apparatus, doing fundraising and opposition research and hiring in top Democratic staffers.
As for Brock, he has been called “the face of the pre-2016″ Clinton campaign and its ”de facto spokesman,” and he will likely serve as a top adviser on the seemingly inevitable Clinton campaign. But he resigned from his leadership position at Priorities USA over what he called an “orchestrated political hit job” against American Bridge and Media Matters by . . . Clinton allies at Priorities USA. The so-called hit job was a front-page New York Times piece by NicholasConfessore about Brock’s longtime fundraiser, Mary Pat Bonner, that detailed her lucrative work on behalf of a trio of pro-Clinton groups — American Bridge, Priorities USA, and Ready for Hillary – that for the past year have been working in concert. The report noted that the groups pay Bonner on commission, a controversial practice among fundraisers and the entities that employ them, PACs and political campaigns alike.
Brock, according to a lengthy account in BuzzFeed, alleges that the piece was the product of dirt being dished by former Obama campaign manager and current Priorities USA co-chair Jim Messina. Brock has since said he will consider rejoining the board. What will happen to all of the bad blood is a different question entirely.
