I don’t think this is getting enough attention:
Super PACs are dominating the air waves in Iowa in the run up to the state’s caucus, the first time that Republican voters will get to cast their ballot in the 2012 GOP presidential primary. According to numbers tallied by the Des Moines Register, super PACs accounted for approximately 45 percent of all television advertising purchased for the primary. Much of that money is coming from the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, in the form of negative ads targeting Newt Gingrich.
Meanwhile, the candidates’ own campaigns are running mostly positive ads:
According to the Post’s handy “Mad Money” campaign ad tracker, the ad war between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich has been a veritable love fest. Every ad run by Gingrich has been positive, and 87 percent of Romney’s ads have been positive.
I don’t know how much Citizens United has helped cause the rise of the SuperPac, but this seems to represent a new direction in politics, and perhaps one that will allow Republican elites to maintain some control of the party. Outsiders with strong grassroots support, like Ron Paul can raise a lot of money from small donors and still get blown away in the money race by big institutional donations to SuperPacs.
This also de-incentives Republican efforts to expand their small donor base in general elections. It will be interesting if, in 5 or 10 years, Democrats dominate the small donor direct-to-campaign (and party committee) game while Republicans rely mostly on big donors. Things are already headed in that direction.
ant
the small donor model dont work anymore cause everybody is broke.
Schlemizel
My assumption is that the Dems will chase the big buck boys also. Its easier & much more rewarding. The DLC started down this path 20 years ago and its a big part of why we can’t have better Dems.
Yes, we are screwed.
Raven
Dirty Work
Carolyn Leonhart kills it.
DougJ
@Raven:
This was a rare (for me) Lyle Lovett reference.
Zifnab
@ant: There are 300 million Americans. If everyone kicks in a buck fifty, you’ve got enough money to run a Presidential campaign. Even bums on the street can scrounge a buck fifty once every four years.
With a large enough donor base, you really don’t need a lot per individual to fill a coffer. And the money raised doesn’t come with huge strings attached, so you aren’t financially bound to a disastrously unpopular policy. On the contrary, because small donations come from such large numbers, you are encouraged to play populist at a profit.
kdaug
Meh. Good cop/Bad cop. “No coordination”, wink-wink.
Candidates keep their hands clean and let the surrogates handle the smearing.
Same as it ever was.
Xenos
There has got to be a point where nearly every single available advertising minute on TV and radio is purchased by these superpacs and everybody else is effectively shut out of access to broadcast advertising. The question is how close we will get to that point in the months of September and October 2012.
Consider a thought experiment – say Mitt Romney himself controlled every minute of TV political advertising in those months. Would he be able to win even then?
Raven
@DougJ: Sorry, misfire again.
S. cerevisiae
There is a demographic/technical angle to this as well which will become an even bigger factor in the future: with the rise of Netflix/internet/dvr, who really watches commercials anymore if they don’t want to? Given the fact that most political ads are on local network TV, isn’t the audience demographic pretty old?
ant
@Zifnab:
the maths.
how many of the 300 mill are kids? they kick in too?
didnt it cost a bill for obama to run last time? what about the republican? what about all the other people running for office?
i dont know about you, but im fucking broke. i aint got shit to kick in this go round.
Villago Delenda Est
What’s going on is that the “I’m OvenMitt draftdodging weirdo religion Romney, and I approved this ad” messages will be positive, while the candidate aligned SuperPACs, with plausible deniability just right for the low information voter, will sling the slime at rivals like Rick “once I was sane, then I found Republicanism” Perry and Ron “All batshit crazy, all the time” Paul.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@Zifnab:
And Obama’s team has already been playing this hard; his small-donor numbers are really good right now, and last quarter he blasted past the entire GOP contingent (if I recall correctly).
(One comment — we oftentimes see comments that “Wall Street” is donating to someone based upon total donors from a type of company. PLEASE keep in mind that said numbers oftentimes wrap up everyone from a company or set of companies, due to the way it’s reported. That’s not always representative of some kind of company-level political stance, but the accumulation of donations from individuals.)
Raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Did you see the clip of him droning on about Obama demonizing people?
Villago Delenda Est
@Raven:
No, but it’s perfectly OK for “campaign” ads in primaries to slime the usurper in the White House. It’s attacking fellow Rethugs that is best done by the stealth campaign operation, the SuperPAC.
Schlemizel
@Zifnab:
I wish I lived in a world where even homeless people had $50 they could piss away every 4 years.
But that aside – every member of Congress today spends more time ‘dialing for dollars’ than they do in chamber & many spend less time on all other duties than grubbing for cash. Eventually it comes down to ROI, if I can make one call and get $52,500 (2.5k for my campaign & 50k to Americans For Apple Pie, Mom and Goodness – my superPAC) why would I make 1050 calls to get the same result?
JGabriel
HuffPo:
DougJ @ Top:
Or an old direction. I fully expect this year to be the most corrupt U.S. political campaign since the 19th C.
.
kdaug
@S. cerevisiae: Yurp. See also: land-line polling.
kdaug
@Villago Delenda Est:
Rinse and repeat.
Villago Delenda Est
@JGabriel:
“Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the con-tin-ental liar from the state of Maine!”
“Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?”
“Gone to the White House ha ha ha!”
GregB
@Villago Delenda Est:
Don’t you mean Mitt, the replicant of American plutocracy?
Villago Delenda Est
@GregB:
He’s known by many names.
None of them flattering.
CarolDuhart2
@S. cerevisiae: And I’ve often felt that there are ways to get around this that we aren’t using. How about a campaign DVD? Instead of flooding the airwaves to the point of sheer saturation reaching people who are tuning out, do a DVD. DVDs could be played over and over again at any time of the day or night, reach people otherwise not watching television, and have plenty of space for information and inspiration.
handsmile
A related article posted today by the Guardian’s Richard Adams, “Iowa’s million dollar attack ads,” that includes blistering examples from Super-PACs aired on behalf of Romney, Perry and Paul:
guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2011/dec/28/2012-presidential-elections-superpac-advertising
The article’s sub-head highlights the more ominous prospect: “The millions of dollars lavished on attack ads in Iowa is a bad taste of things to come in the 2012 presidential election.”
kdaug
@Villago Delenda Est: “Shave off those beards, boys, and get back in line!”
CarolDuhart2
@ant: Yes it does. True, not everybody can give the max in money, but everyone can volunteer as well, saving the campaign money there. People can donate time and materials as well as money. And even $1.50 per supporter can fund a congressional race if the base is big enough.
Zifnab
@Schlemizel: Well, you don’t need $50, you need $1.50. Of course, that’s assuming everyone kicks in for the same candidate which is a bit of a silly assumption.
But to bring it into more realistic terms, Obama got around 70 million votes in 2008.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2008#Campaign_costs
If you consider the money he raised versus the votes he got, it was about $7.39 / vote. That’s an hour of minimum wage work once every four years. Totally manageable on even the tightest of budgets. Plenty of Obama donors contribute in the $10-25 range, and continuous expansion of that small donor base is a key part of modern election financing especially for the Democrats.
Ideally, you’re not making 1050 calls. You are sending out 10,000 fund raising fliers or newsletters and getting 10% of your audience to kick in $50. That’s a common practice in both parties. If you have your electorate engaged and generally happy with your performance, it’s much easier to solicited those small dollar donations. Big money bombs from single donors only become necessary when your base is small and your community is generally apathetic or hostile. And since the big money donors are often asking for unpopular policy, this only deepens your dependence on them.
Mark S.
@Xenos:
No, because he’s Mitt Romney, the worst politician in history.
He’s still the GOP’s only hope to beat Obama.
PeakVT
@Schlemizel: ROI is the core problem. Not only are rich donors likely to give more, they’re also more likely to give in the first place, since they have cash to spare.
I think it will take a constitutional amendment to fix our system of legalized bribery, which means the chances of it being fixed are very low.
Professor
@ant: I think Zifnab was speaking statistically, ie if on average each one of us contribute buckfifty.
Nellcote
Adventures with the Colbert SuperPAC in South Carolina:
Colbert guest editorial: Naming rights, state mottoes and the GOP primary + video
thestate.com/2011/12/22/2088020/op-ed-naming-rights-state-mottos.html#storylink=cpy
Xenos
@Mark S.: Certainly none of the other candidates could do it.
The hypothetical leads to two other concerns – one is the indirect effect of all the advertising being bought by one side – would there even be a pretense of even-handedness on the part of the MSM in such a situation? The Mittocracy would not be buying just the advertising time, but all the news coverage, too.
The other is the credulity of the public. If all the advertising and news coverage is one-sided, would a significant part of the public believe any of the reporting and advertising? Enough would swallow it, I think, for just about any folly to be possible.
Schlemizel
@Zifnab:
But members ARE spending long hours on the phone today. Thats in addition to the letters etc. My guess is that they are not hitting 100% either so that 1000 calls easily becomes several thousand.
Yes, big donors are more likely to expect results that are unpopular with the majority of Americans but name someone paying a price for that today. It is a big part of why we can’t have better Dems – they owe too much to the 1%.
gaz
OT: Ding Dong the witch is dead. The wicked witch of nebraska just retired. YAY.
And to any arsehat that laments the fact that a repub will take his seat, keep in mind that Nelson voted with democrats less often than some republicans. He also had seniority, and will be replaced by a FRESHMAN repub. With no senate subcommittee chairmanship. Unlike ben.
Stupid SOB is gone. W00t!
Cris (without an H)
You’re also working something of a pyramid hierarchy. As a candidate, you shouldn’t be the only one out there shaking hands and soliciting donations. You have volunteers, who recruit more volunteers, who canvas their neighborhoods or put up ActBlue links for their blog visitors.
Benjamin Franklin
@gaz:
I dunno, the SOB was the ‘devil you know’, ya know?
Davis X. Machina
@Xenos:
They are close to one-and-the-same. How many of the stories in the last campaign were about ads — ads run, ads pulled, demands that ads be pulled — even internet ads basically no one saw — where money was being spent, or not spent, to buy airtime?
I’m guessing a third…
Zifnab
@Mark S.: FOX News hasn’t exactly been Romney’s biggest backer. If all the other candidates were being snubbed and it was wall-to-wall Romney-mania, I suspect he really would be doing better in the polls if only because FOX has performed so admirably when it comes to convincing its viewership to believe black is white except when its black again.
The problem with political ads is that they aren’t very subtle. It’s the difference between a classy pro-football truck commercial showing you a pick up driving over a mountain while bikini-clad co-eds mud-wrestle in the trunk and one of those rinky-dink “Bill’s Discount Used Car Extravoganza Sales Event” ads you see on late night.
With an ad, you know you are being pitched to. With a major media guy like Tweety smelling Aqua Velva and telling you he feels shivers running up his leg, the propaganda is significantly more subtle. Its far more valuable to have the media figures acting really nice, and friendly, and – above all – servile to the candidate. Romney doesn’t quite have that right now and he would benefit a lot in receiving it.
AlladinsLamp
Don’t think that’s its “for free.”
The Moar You Know
@gaz: Supporting links, please.
Zifnab
@Schlemizel: Well, that extra phone time may have something to do with Congress’s teen-level approval numbers. It’s really hard to get people to give you money when everyone hates you. And harder still when legislation isn’t flowing and you don’t have a lot of opportunity to bring home the bacon.
Right now, most of what each party can promise is what they plan not to do. I can’t say I’d be tone-deaf to my Congressman if he sent out a mailer saying “I promise not to vote for SOPA / NDAA / the Balanced Budget Amendment, etc, etc”, but it doesn’t have the ring of “I promise to increase public school funding by 20%” or “I want to bring in a new highway / factory / military base to our district”.
There’s no ROI in an austerity budget.
Schlemizel
@Zifnab:
Don’t tell the Koch’s there is no ROI in an austerity budget. They are not funding this mess for charity. There is big money to be made in chaos & several of the names you see attached to these efforts are in position to receive.
wrb
If Mitt is the nominee Obama will be swamped by super pac money.
If it is one of the notmits, some of that money will stay home.
Canuckistani Tom
In Canada, political contributions are tax deductible. Is this how it works in the USA?
gaz
@The Moar You Know:
Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins – hell, John McCain?
sorry man – there’s no easily digestable link on this.
You’d have to parse the info here: senatereports.com/
as I did,
Nellcote
@gaz:
He’s no Manchin. Acording to Lawrence O’donnell he voted with the dems 80% of the time. And depending on your pov he was the final vote to pass health care reform.
As frustrating as he is, it’s hard to see a gooper as an improvement. Especially when you’re talking about the balance of the senate.
BruinKid
Speaking of Ron Paul, I wrote up my response to that Ron Paul fan for calling Obama “more racist” than Paul. And now some Kossacks are criticizing me for not attacking Obama enough for being too corporatist. :-\
gaz
@Nellcote: I’ll take a freshman teabagger over a ratfucker with seniority any day.
Also, what good is control of the senate when you can’t count on this ratfucker for a cloture vote?
Although, I’m off topic again, and I had no idea that this was already covered here at BJ – I missed the post. So I’m going to ixnay on further posts about Ben on this thread.
Nellcote
@gaz:
your link says Nelson voted with the dems 82% same as Sanders and Kerry.
rikyrah
don’t believe the Iowa and New Hampshire folks understand what this means. if their state can be bought with ads, without doing the retail politicking, then why the fuck should candidates go to Iowa and New Hampshire?
burnspbesq
OT, but can someone please remind me why a core tenet of American foreign policy is to empower people who do stuff like this?
smh.com.au/world/fury-at-ultraorthodox-jews-after-girl-abused-20111228-1pcv4.html
Satanicpanic
@gaz: I’ll just be glad not to have to look at his gigantic head anymore. That this is big enough to have its own satellites.
The Moar You Know
@Nellcote: Damned inconvenient facts.
Cris (without an H)
No.
Cris (without an H)
@burnspbesq: Can you explain how the state of Israel is complicit in the behavior of those Orthodox men? In fact, it looks to me like there are efforts underway to legislate against this kind of bullying behavior.
burnspbesq
@Cris (without an H):
“In fact, it looks to me like there are efforts underway to legislate against this kind of bullying behavior.”
Window dressing which will die a quick death in the Knesset because Netanyahu can’t govern without the ultras.
“Can you explain how the state of Israel is complicit in the behavior of those Orthodox men?”
As long as the ultras hold the balance of political power, they are the State of Israel.
Davis X. Machina
@burnspbesq: There’s the Russians to consider, too. They’re the opposite-of-orthodox, but together with the haredis, they’re the backbone of Netanyahu’s coalition.
And we think the GOP has internal fissures….
kdaug
@Cris (without an H):
Not everyone’s had their Suffragette moment yet.
Sins & stones, barefoot & pregnant, and all that…
JGabriel
@rikyrah:
Exactly. That’s the thesis Newt & Mitt are testing in IA.
.
lol
@gaz:
According to Progressive Punch, Nelson is the right-most Democrat and still substantially better than the nearest Republican.
Mnemosyne
@Cris (without an H):
@burnspbesq:
Interestingly, the story seems to indicate that the worst offenders are not actually native Israelis, but ultra-Orthodox immigrants from the US (as is the victim).
It looks to me like the problem that dare not speak its name in Israel is crazy US immigrants distorting the political situation. Many of the illegal settlers are immigrants. Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Muslims inside their mosque in Hebron and wounded 125 more, was an immigrant from the US.
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
That’s interesting, because according to that Wikipedia article, the main part of their platform is the formation of a Palestinian state through land swaps. I thought only anti-Semites like Barack Obama thought that was a good idea. :-)
slag
@Nellcote: Haha!
Maybe if Colbert would have offered to sponsor a sports stadium in the GOP’s name, he would have gotten the deal done.
Davis X. Machina
@Mnemosyne:It’s not out of a commitment to Palestinian nationalism. They want to get rid of as many Israeli Arabs as they can, ans the land swap is about the only non-genocidal means that comes to hand.
Southern Beale
Apparently Rick Perry just tried to criticize Obama on the Keystone pipeline by saying every barrel of Canadian oil we use is one less barrel of “foreign” oil we’re buying.
Dear God. The stupid it BURRRRRNS.
Cris (without an H)
@Southern Beale: So Perry accidentally revealed his plan to annex Canada then
Amir Khalid
@Southern Beale:
I just don’t understand how you Americans can allow the feeble-minded to go out in public like this.
Shalimar
@gaz: Nelson sucks. He is annoying and noticeable because he votes against Dems on so many visible issues. And you can argue spending money to keep him in office takes that money away from races where a much more liberal Democrat has a chance of winning. But a tea party Republican from Nebraska is still going to be much worse than Nelson. Just less noticeable.
THE
@Southern Beale:
Perhaps he is telling us that he is secretly Canadian.
slag
@THE:
Just like Michelle Bachmann.
I always knew Canada was just waiting for the opportunity to sneak attack us from within. I even considered writing a book about the threat but bagged the idea when I realized that The Canuckian Candidate wasn’t that scary of a title.
JGabriel
@Amir Khalid:
Reagan ordered most of the crazy people that were being cared for released back in the 80’s. Apparently, even back then, Reagan foresaw the need for fresh GOP voters in the future.
.
JGabriel
@slag:
You could have tried The Canadadate, but I suppose people would have just thought you were stuttering.
.
Barry
@burnspbesq: “OT, but can someone please remind me why a core tenet of American foreign policy is to empower people who do stuff like this?”
Let’s see – right-wing, imperialistic, racist, misogynistic anti-democratic f*cks who really hate anybody’s right except for their own privileges.
Of course the right in the USA likes these guys.
Brandon
It used to be the other way around. When McCain-Feingold passed, the CW was that it was institutionalizing Republican hard money dominance from their extensive small donor base and would permanently consign Democrats to the minority because they relied so heavily on their “limosine liberal” soft money donors. The big change it did make was to focus big money democrati donor contributions away from campaigns and into instituion building, particlarly CAP and focus Democrats on building and reaching out to a broader and larger small donor base. In the end it actually became a boon to the Democrats. And I suspect that if Republicans go down this road, they are not going to be likely to see a Republican presidency for a long time. But they will conversely be able to control the airwaves to assert dominance over Congressional campaigns, at least until Democrats start taking state elections more seriously.
JGabriel
Brandon:
How important will the airwaves continue to be as the internet becomes more pervasive and the generations who grew up on it age?
I’m not sure myself. GOP dominance of radio in a television era certainly helped them with an older demographic (and a driving demographic), so it is possible, maybe even probable, that the airwaves of both tv and radio will continue to be politically important.
But it’s also possible that dominance on the internet will be the most important way to influence future elections.
.
Dug FmJamul
“Bipartisanship“, does not mean abandoning constitutional principles to compromise with the democrats. The Tea Party supported Scott Brown because they believed he would uphold constitutional principles, not abandon them in the vain effort of reaching bipartisanship with the socialists in the Senate.
Senate Brown has voted on 33 of 68 (49%) pieces of Progressive Legislation and 30 of 52 (58%) Conservative pieces of Legislation, Scotty has voted for more progressive pieces of legislation than conservative! Jim DeMint has a positive Conservative Ranking of 90%, while Ben Nelson has a Progressive Ranking of 47% compared to Harry Reid’s 90%.
Brown sits next to bottom of the Conservative Ranking List with his fellow RINOs Snowe and Collins with a negative ranking. That’s pathetic; a negative conservative ranking is not what the ‘Tea Party’ had in mind when they threw their support behind Scott Brown. What’s the point of having a Republican In Name Only if they are going to support the socialist agenda of Obama and his democrats?
If a Democrat wins in MA, so freaking what? For all practical purposes Scott Brown is a moderate Democrat, along with Snowe and Collins.
http://SenateReports.com