The authors of plan that hoped to smear President Obama over his past connection to controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright inadvertently gave Obama's reelection campaign a fundraising tool.

The plan, written for and then rejected by billionaire Joe Ricketts, also proposed that Ricketts hire an "extremely literate conservative African-American" to paint Obama as a "metrosexual."

It was swiftly repudiated by the Romney campaign, Ricketts and Team Obama.

Though it seems the proposal partially succeeded in its intent – the story has resurrected the original Wright controversy – the President's staffers are already framing it as just part of a broader movement working against the president. From a fundraising email sent my campaign manager Jim Messina and found at TPM:

[The plan] 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.
…
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.

Knowing how fundraising ebbs and flows – for example, the flood after President Obama endorsed gay marriage – it wouldn't be surprising to see the campaign's email pay off.