Who needs to pay for advertisements when the press will roll out your talking points in a campaign memo…er, AP story:

President Barack Obama’s campaign accused Republican Mitt Romney of siding with “Big Oil” in a new television ad released Monday, signaling an escalation of a general election campaign and a vigorous debate over gas prices.”In all these fights, Mitt Romney’s stood with Big Oil – for their tax breaks, attacking higher mileage standards and renewables,” the Obama campaign said in the new ad…

It noted that the American Energy Alliance was run by a former lobbyist for Koch Industries, an industrial firm whose top executives are Charles and David Koch, both prominent supporters of conservative causes.

HotAir nicely takes down the hypocrisy of Obama and Priorities USA Action in following this line of attack, but here, we want to focus on the absurdity of today’s AP story in the context of this Politico article from February 6^th: 

On Monday morning, Obama reviled the “negative” tone of the super PACs, a dominant fundraising source in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. But by the evening, word leaked to POLITICO that Obama had offered his support for Priorities USA Action, which thus far has raised a fraction of what GOP-backed groups have raked in.

SuperPAC broke?  Unpopular president can’t raise enough funds for huge ad buys to get out your message?  No worries!  Just call the folks over at AP and have them give your ad national coverage so people still get the message and know where to find the ad on your website.  After all, per the AP story, this message only would’ve reached six states:

Obama’s new ad is airing in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia… It noted that the American Energy Alliance was run by a former lobbyist for Koch Industries, an industrial firm whose top executives are Charles and David Koch, both prominent supporters of conservative causes… Priorities USA has struggled to compete with some of its Republican rivals.

And lest you think this is just another vicious political attack ad, the AP story reassures us that Priorities Action USA is simply performing a noble service in defense of an unfairly beleaguered President who doesn’t have time to refute all these scurrilous attacks while making secret agreements with Russia, weighing in on local police matters to exploit racial tensions, destroying advances in education, criticizing Republicans for being anti-future, and… arguing against his own philosophy on energy policy.

It aims to counter a $3.6 million ad campaign launched by American Energy Alliance blaming Obama for rising gas prices and his decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline project.

Don’t worry, Mr. President.  We got the message.