'Obama for America' to morph into 'Organizing for Action'

As President Barack Obama begins his second term in the White House, the remaining structure of his re-election campaign will re-launch as a new political organization with a mission to advocate his agenda over the next four years.

CNN has confirmed that Obama for America will transform into a nonprofit, tax-exempt group, that will attempt to leverage the re-election campaign's powerful grassroots organization and social media operation, as well as its rich voter database and vast email distribution list, to build up public support for the president as he pushes for agreements over the debt ceiling and the federal budget, gun control legislation, immigration reform, and other objectives.

A senior Democratic official with knowledge of the plans confirms to CNN that name of the new organization will be "Organizing for Action." The formal announcement will come Sunday, at an Obama campaign legacy conference being held in the nation's capital.

Jim Messina, who steered the 2012 Obama re-election campaign, will serve as national chairman of the new group, as first reported earlier this month.

The new organization will be set up as a 501(c)4 group, which would allow the organization, by law, to accept unlimited contributions. The law also does not mandate that the names of donors have to be publicly disclosed. But a Democratic official says the new group will most likely voluntarily reveal its contributors.

Unlike four years ago, this time around the Obama campaign grassroots organization will not be stored in the Democratic National Committee. In early 2009 the remnants of the 2008 Obama presidential election campaign were put under the DNC. The operation was used to try and build up grassroots support for such first term fights over health care and Wall Street reform, which both narrowly passed through Congress and became law. There's some political disagreement over how successful the organization, known as Organizing for America, was in building up support for the president's first term agenda.

In April 2011, OFA was put back under the direction of the Obama campaign, with the launch of the 2012 re-election organization.