GOP SuperPACs Planning $1 Billion Blitz

[Frodo]

I hope the Obama re-election team is prepared:

GOP groups plan record $1 billion blitz

By MIKE ALLEN and JIM VANDEHEI | 5/30/12 4:34 AM EDT

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.

That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections - twice what they had been expected to commit.

Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, proved its potency by spending nearly $50 million in the primaries. Now able to entice big donors with a neck-and-neck general election, the group is likely to meet its new goal of spending $100 million more.

And American Crossroads and the affiliated Crossroads GPS, the groups that Rove and Ed Gillespie helped conceive and raise cash for, are expected to ante up $300 million, giving the two-year-old organization one of the election’s loudest voices.

“The intensity on the right is white-hot,” said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. “We just can’t leave anything in the locker room. And there is a greater willingness to cooperate and share information among outside groups on the center-right.”

In targeted states, the groups’ activities will include TV, radio and digital advertising; voter-turnout work; mail and phone appeals; and absentee- and early-ballot drives.

The $1 billion in outside money is in addition to the traditional party apparatus – the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee – which together intend to raise at least $800 million.

The Republican financial plans are unlike anything seen before in American politics. If the GOP groups hit their targets, they likely could outspend their liberal adversaries by at least two-to-one, according to officials involved in the budgeting for outside groups on the right and left.
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Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/76849.html#ixzz1wLsKofXm

[Comrade Shmoo]

With a ration like 2:1, Romney might get 250 votes!

[kingthlayer]

How fitting that a campaign for the 1% be fully backed by the 1%.

This is a serious problem for the Democrats, who, despite warning signs in 2010, have failed to really get Super PACs up and running.

Usually whoever raises the most money wins the day..

[wan]

It's all about money our votes don't matter

[Speaker Dereich]

It's all about money our votes don't matter

Tell that to Meg Whitman.

[CultureKing]

Ugh... Don't people have better things to waste money on?

So in essence we are looking at a presidential election cycle that could reach up to $3 billion in spending?
Right-wing SuperPACs: $1 billion
RNC + Romney: $800 million
Obama + DNC: $1 billion
Left-wing SuperPACs:

Who's up for a round of real campaign finance reform?

[Comrade Shmoo]

How fitting that a campaign for the 1% be fully backed by the 1%.

This is a serious problem for the Democrats, who, despite warning signs in 2010, have failed to really get Super PACs up and running.

Usually whoever raises the most money wins the day..

However, as we've seen in the primaries, that's not entirely true. Romney was blowing his opponents out of the water, spending-wise, but barely won in Michigan and Ohio.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Meanwhile, people starve.

[Purch]

Campaign money
Education
Wall Street
Healthcare
Immigration

What doesn't need to be reformed in this country. =/

[Swedish Cheese]

It's all about money our votes don't matter

Tell that to Meg Whitman.

Or to Mitt Romney in the several states where he lost to Santorum despite out-spending him by rediculous numbers.

[I left.]

It's all about money our votes don't matter

Tell that to Meg Whitman.

Or to Mitt Romney in the several states where he lost to Santorum despite out-spending him by rediculous numbers.

True, it shows money isn't everything. But it does seem that Romney was able to buy himself a few close wins such as Michigan and Ohio.

[Lief]

But remember folks, despite this, America is the still the greatest country in the history of the world, because _____________.

[King]

It says something about Mitt Romney's economic policies that spending $billions to try and get him elected is actually weighed as being a cost saving invested compared to paying current tax rates.

[Minnesota Mike]

I think there is a law of diminishing return when it comes to Super Pac spending. The first time you see a negative add you might pay attention, the 50th time you see a negative add you ignore it, the 100th time you get mad at the people running it.

[greenforest32]

2016 is probably going to pass $10 billion at this rate.

Big money, small ideas. That's what we're about here it seems.

[WhyteRain]

First, this is a "state-run media" article.  You know it is when they say things like

"The Republican financial plans [to raise $1 billion] are unlike anything seen before in American politics"

while never mentioning that Obama has already targeted that figure: 

Analysis: Billion-dollar Obama to run moneyed campaign
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/us-usa-election-obama-analysis-idUSTRE7330NY20110404

So "plans unlike anything seen before" turns out to mean "since last year".

I am new here but I hoped I wouldn't find many MSM zombies.

For the guy who asked if we're ready "for real campaign finance reform": 

1.  I've noticed that whenever something didn't work out as progressives hoped, they say it's because it wasn't "real".  The first time I noticed it was after the Senate's seven-week debate on the Iraq War Resolution was approved 79-21, progressives said "we need a real debate".

2.  We've had nearly 40 years of "campaign finance reform" -- some of it so "real" that  the Supreme Court had to strike it down on First Amendment grounds.  How do you like it?  Here's a clue:  When campaign contributors -- let's just use Obama's green energy rackets for example -- can get billions in government handouts for an expenditure of less than a million in campaign donations, I'll give you three guesses what's gonna happen no matter what other "rules" you have.  And the first two don't count.