[Blitzer:] "It begins with us." With those words, President Obama has officially launched his bid for re-election in 2012. And now that the race is on, so is the race for campaign cash. The president expects to raise a record-breaking get this $1 billion. All this week, CNN is focusing in on the enormous amounts of money all the parties will pour into the 2012 presidential campaign. All told, it could be $3 billion, maybe even more. Let's bring in our national political correspondent, Jessica Yellin. She's crunching the numbers. What can I say? Wow.
[Jessica Yellin, Cnn National Political Correspondent:] Wow. It's an astonishing amount of money, Wolf. One top Democratic fund-raiser told me these days it's the Wild West when it comes to raising money for campaigns, and it's never too soon to start fundraising.
[Yellin:] This was candidate Obama's announcement four years ago
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States:] I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States of America.
[Yellin:] Now, a very different approach. The president declared his candidacy in a video. He's not even in it.
[Unidentified Female:] There's so many things that are still on the table that need to be addressed. And we want them to be addressed by President Obama.
[Yellin:] He's the first major candidate to officially jump into the race. Last month, his top strategist gave John King this insight
[David Axelrod, Top Strategist For Obama:] So it takes time to build organization, it takes time to raise the kind of money to compete with the kind of money we're going to see on the other side.
[Yellin:] We're talking big money. Last time around, the Obama team raised $745 million. This time, campaign aides are telling donors it will cost $1 billion. That would break all records. The request for donations begins here, today.
[Jay Carney, White House Press Secretary:] The president is not focused on elections. He's focused on doing the work that he was elected to do.
[Yellin:] Another reason they announced now, to mobilize grassroots activists who were crucial to their victory in 2008. That can be challenging when the candidate is in Washington, not an untainted outsider.
[Unidentified Female:] President Obama is one person. He cannot go. Plus, he's got a job. We're paying him to do a job. So we can't say, hey, could you just take some time off and come and get us all energized? So we'd better figure it out.
[Yellin:] Republicans weren't caught off guard. They released this video attacking the president
[Unidentified Male:] We hoped and you hoped.
[Obama:] My hope is My hope is My hope is
[Unidentified Male:] But hope isn't hiring.
[Yellin:] And they are raising money of their own off Mr. Obama's news. Now, keep in mind, last time around, the Obama campaign spent plenty of its $750 million in its primary fight with Hillary Clinton. Since the president is spared that fight, why raise so much money? Well, for one thing, the team wants to counter the outside money new Republican independent expenditure groups plan to raise. And there's this. Democrats were surprised by the 2010 midterm elections. Republicans raised so much money at the very end of those elections. Democrats don't want to be caught off guard, Wolf, again.
[Blitzer:] Why can't the Democrats do what the Republicans do with these outside independent expenditure groups?
[Yellin:] They are. And they are starting at least three new independent expenditure groups, Democrats unaffiliated with the Obama campaign. But they're very concerned that they are a little late, Republicans got a jump-start, and that they won't be able to raise as much money.
[Blitzer:] Because the last time, as you say, $745 million they raised. But they had all those caucuses, all those primaries, all those other Democrats who were fighting the president. Now he is running unopposed, and he's the incumbent. I tweeted this earlier and got a tremendous response on Twitter. He's the incumbent with a built-in advantage. So he needs $1 billion?
[Yellin:] It's they are enormously anxious about all the money they believe the groups that Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie are affiliated with and the Koch brothers are affiliated with will just dump money into ads attacking the president outside the campaign, that Democratic groups cannot compete with that. And so the campaign itself has to raise the money to compete.
[Blitzer:] When I say he's running on the post, for the Democratic nomination. He will have a an opponent in the general election.
[Yellin:] Of course. Of course.
[Blitzer:] A Republican, maybe an Independent. Who knows?
[Yellin:] Who knows?
[Blitzer:] Thanks very much, Jessica. Let's dig a little bit deeper on this. The Supreme Court is a key factor in this escalating amount of cash that we're likely to see in this coming presidential campaign. Our senior legal analyst Jeff Toobin is back with more on this. Explain, Jeff, why the Supreme Court has had an enormous impact on the political fundraising we are about to see.
[Jeffrey Toobin, Cnn Sr. Legal Analyst:] It's really one simple idea, which is starting in 1976, the Supreme Court said that spending money in a political campaign is an activity protected by the First Amendment like giving a speech, like carrying a protest sign. And what we're seeing, particularly in recent years, is the Supreme Court saying any attempt to regulate how candidates raise money or spend money is an interference with First Amendment rights. So what that means is there is a deregulation of campaign finance, of campaign spending, of campaign fundraising that is going on as we speak.
[Blitzer:] And the president's decision to go ahead and raise all this money, not only in his bid to get the Democratic nomination he doesn't have an opponent but to win the general election, for all practical purposes, he's announcing today he will once ago forego public financing of the general campaign.
[Toobin:] Yes, but this campaign is likely to look like the good old days in short order if you follow the logic of the Supreme Court, because there are still rules in effect like how much an individual can give to a campaign. There is still the old, old rule that corporations can't give directly to campaigns They can give independently to groups that support campaigns. That was the Citizens United decision of last year. But if you follow where the Supreme Court is going and you could really see it last week in an argument in a case about an Arizona law they are moving away from allowing any sort of campaign regulations. So even the contribution limits that are in effect now may well be gone by the time of the 2016 presidential campaign.
[Blitzer:] And you agree that the Republicans are simply better in raising these outside independent expenditure money than the Democrats are?
[Toobin:] Well, so far they have been. I mean, certainly Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie and company were much faster off the mark to take advantage of the Citizens United decision and organize expenditures that are independent. Certainly, the Democrats are trying to catch up. But if you look at the money interest, if you look at corporations, if you look at the comparison between the economic power of corporations versus labor unions today, who support Democrats, it is certainly to the advantage of the Republicans, although having an incumbent president is a very, very big advantage.
[Blitzer:] I can't tell you how many people have just e-mailed me today or tweeted to me, they think it's obscene, billions of dollars in campaign money that is going to be spent when there are so many poor people out there, so much other better use for billions of dollars. They don't like it for the simple reason that it just you know, out of control, shall we say. You know who is going to benefit the most?
[Toobin:] Us.
[Blitzer:] All of us who work in the broadcasting business
[Toobin:] Absolutely.
[Blitzer:] because the political advertising will be enormous. Web sites will get a lot of money from all of these campaign advertising dollars. So we'll benefit from it, but that's the nature of the beast, I guess, right now.
[Toobin:] And I promise you, 2016, it will make whatever happens I don't care how much Barack Obama raises these laws are going out the window. It's going to be the Wild West by 2016.
[Blitzer:] And you've got a great piece in "The New Yorker" magazine on the impact. Let me give our viewers a recommendation, they go and read your piece. Is it online already?
[Toobin:] It is, NewYorker.com.
[Blitzer:] Something like that. You don't tweet though, do you?
[Toobin:] Not yet. I know. I'm very 19th century.
[Blitzer:] Because I was looking for your name on Twitter, and I came up with a bunch "Jeffrey Toobin hates Twitter" and stuff like that.
[Toobin:] No. I'm not as young as you are, Wolf.
[Blitzer:] All right. Yes. You are younger than I am, but you should be tweeting, like all of us.
[Toobin:] I should. I know.
[Blitzer:] OK. Start. You know what?
[Toobin:] I can start.
[Blitzer:] OK, good. Jeff Toobin, thank you. Good piece in "The New Yorker."
[Toobin:] Thanks.
[Blitzer:] A check of today's other top stories coming up next. But right now, Libyan rebels are fighting for the key oil port of Al Brega. We're going to Libya live for the latest on that fierce battle. And time is running out for Yemen's president as thousands of pro- democracy demonstrators descend on the royal palace. Will al Qaeda try to take advantage of the instability?