Charlie Rangel (Photo: Facebook)

Congressman Charlie Rangel is trying to use a Super PAC that's backing his opponent State Senator Adriano Espaillat to his own advantage. The Politicker received a mailer from Mr. Rangel at our Washington Heights bureau in which the congressman encourages people to give him their votes because of the Super PAC's support for his rival.

"Pinned down on the battlefield in Korea, Charlie Rangel decided to devote himself to public service if God let him survive. And he's never stopped fighting for us," the mailer says. "But now right-wing Tea Partiers from Texas are trying to stop him by telling us how to vote--and its time to fight back."

The "super PAC" from Texas Mr. Rangel refers to in his mailer is the Campaign for Primary Accountability, Houston-based PAC that targets incumbents. In a statement announcing its support for Ms. Espaillat, the CPA described Mr. Rangel as a prime example of the downside of incumbency.

"Charlie Rangel has sadly become the model of how some long-term incumbents become too comfortable with the special interests that infest Washington," the statement said. "As chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Rangel was responsible for extending the notorious tax break that allowed GE to pay zero taxes on billions of dollars of profits."

The CPA has supported both Democrats and Republicans who are running against longtime incumbents. Though the PAC's activities have been bipartisan, it has several prominent conservative donors including ERICPAC, the political action committee run by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Joe Ricketts, the billionaire who made headlines earlier this month when his own Super PAC considered a plan to target President Barack Obama by painting him as a "metrosexual black Abe Lincoln."

President Obama

A conservative Super PAC backed by billionaire Joe Ricketts may have thought they could take down President Barack Obama with a $10 million ad campaign resurrecting 2008's Jeremiah Wright scandal, but the Obama campaign is gleefully using the so-called "Ricketts Plan" as an opportunity to paint Mitt Romney as immoral and rally their supporters.

Though Mr. Romney disavowed the Super PAC's strategy, President Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, issued a statement earlier this afternoon saying the strategy "revealed the appalling lengths to which Republican operatives and SuperPacs apparently are willing to go to tear down the President and elect Mitt Romney” and accusing Mr. Romney of "reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party." A few hours later, Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt sent out a nearly identical statement.

"Today, Mitt Romney had the opportunity to distance himself from his previous attempts to inject the divisive politics of character assassination into the presidential race. It was a moment that required moral leadership, and once again he didn’t rise to the occasion," Mr. LaBolt said. "Throughout the course of the campaign, he has repeatedly refused to stand up to the most extreme voices in the Republican Party. If this is the ‘leadership’ he has shown on the campaign trail, what can the American people expect of him President of the United States?”

Two minutes after Mr. LaBolt's statement went out, Mr. Messina sent a "Ricketts Plan"-themed fundraising email to supporters.

"A 54-page, $10 million proposal by top Republican strategists titled "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama" shows in vivid and gruesome detail what the President and all of us are up against," Mr. Messina wrote. "This is going to be worse than we could have imagined. President Obama needs your help to stop it before it starts."

Read Mr. Messina's full email below:

"A 54-page, $10 million proposal by top Republican strategists titled "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama" shows in vivid and gruesome detail what the President and all of us are up against.

The proposal laments that voters "still aren't ready to hate this president" but lays out a plan to portray him as "slick" and "cocky" -- and notes that they need to hire an "extremely literate conservative African-American" to insulate against charges of racism.

It says the President ran as a "metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln" and includes plans to spend millions on inflammatory TV ads using everything from Rev. Jeremiah Wright to images of the September 11th attacks to show the truth about Obama's alleged secret plan to destroy America.

In the words of one of these guys, they want to "do exactly what John McCain would not let us do" in the last election. And the plan was for it to be financed by a single billionaire.

This is going to be worse than we could have imagined. President Obama needs your help to stop it before it starts.

Pitch in today to fight these attacks and show them this only makes us stronger:

https://donate.barackobama.com/Help-Fight-Back

Thanks,

Messina

Jim Messina
Campaign Manager
Obama for America"

Otis Moss III (Photo: Facebook)

Reverend Jeremiah Wright's successor as pastor of Chicago's Trinity Baptist Church, Otis Moss III, took to Twitter to comment on the New York Times' story about a controversial plan by a conservative Super PAC run by billionaire Joe Ricketts to attack President Barack Obama by associating him with Reverend Wright.

"We must fight this! Just got word about the structure of the ads. I will be calling on people of good will to stand with our church," Mr. Moss wrote. "It is not about denomination or theology This is an attack on the black church, ministry and prophetic witness."

President Obama met Reverend Wright in the late 1980's while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago. He went on to join Trinity Baptist Church and Reverend Wright officiated at his wedding and baptized both of his daughters. Their association became controversial during the 2008 elections after ABC News revealed excerpts of Rev. Wright's sermons in which he accused the American government of having invented the HIV virus, repeatedly lying and in which he described 9/11 as "America's chickens ... coming home to roost."

President Obama subsequently described the sermons as "divisive and destructive" and withdrew his membership from the church. Rev. Wright was retiring when the scandal broke in March, 2008. He had given his last sermon as pastor one month earlier and Rev. Moss was already preaching from Trinity's pulpit. Mr. Moss officially took over as the church's senior pastor in mid-2009. On Twitter today, Rev. Moss also asked for support now that the scandal is being resurrected.

"We ask for prayer for our church and community. Thank you," he wrote.

Joan Harrell, a spokeswoman for Trinity Church, told The Politicker Mr. Moss would not be commenting on the situation beyond his Tweets.

"Thank you very much for offering Dr. Moss the opportunity for an interview but he is not providing any more comments about the New York Times story," she said.