The story in Politico that states that GOP leaning outside groups will invest north of one billion dollars in addition to the hundreds of millions being raised by Romney should be a wakeup call. Firstly, it is exactly what scholars, pundits, bloggers, and the president said would happen. Secondly, they are operating under the premise that the American vote is for sale. The most telling fact is that outside groups have data to show that the millions they poured into the Republican primaries had a distinct effect on the race. They intend to replicate it in the general election from the President all the way to the congressional battles.
The following statement in the article is telling and should not be taken lightly.
From Politico
Republicans have taken one big lesson away from campaigns conducted to date in 2011 and 2012: outside money can be the difference-maker in elections.
It was outside money from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson that single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich afloat against Romney. A super PAC spending surge fueled by Wyoming mutual fund guru Foster Friess was credited with powering Rick Santorum to an upset win in the Iowa caucuses. And outside money has helped lift tea party challengers past incumbents like Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) in this year’s primaries.
Many groups see this money in politics issue as a danger to our democracy. While that is true, I think it is much more dangerous than just a danger to our democracy.
We know what the results of the policies these wealthy investors in the GOP will demand of their political puppets will be. It is the continued extraction of middle class wealth and the continued depression of middle class wages to normalize it to the wages of the third world. Their expectation is to bring back manufacturing to America at lower wages which further increase their profits as shipping costs and the cost of investing in unstable countries are mitigated. Of course they will expect further tax incentives to repatriate profits held overseas and repatriate labor.
These unpatriotic “one percenters” (not all but those that are a proven danger to middle class well-being) miss an important point. If they are successful in winning it all and implementing their policies, the middle class decline will continue. Moreover they will have no boogey man to blame as it will be their unabated policies that will be in effect. The Right Wing has ensured that America is armed to the brink. What happens when those that are armed, those that support the policies of the GOP, those that drank the Paul Ryan austerity, supply side, cut and cap fantasy realize they’ve been had?
It is for this reason that we must redouble our efforts to first learn the truth and get the truth out. It is for this reason we must talk and talk and talk to our families, friends, and neighbors and ensure they do the same. If we are unsuccessful, those that are used to having, those that are used to being the best and most prosperous in the world, those that are being pushed to the brink with no possibility of improving their future, and those that no longer have anything to lose will start the 2nd American Revolution.
GOP groups plan $1 billion blitz
By: Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei
May 30, 2012 04:34 AM EDTRepublican 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.
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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.
By contrast, Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting President Barack Obama’s reelection, has struggled to raise money, and now hopes to spend about $100 million. Obama’s initial reluctance to embrace such groups constrained fundraising on the Democratic side, which is now trying to make up for lost time.
Labor could add another $200 million to $400 million in Democratic backing.
The consequences of the conservative resurgence in fundraising are profound. If it holds, Romney and his allies will likely outraise and outspend Obama this fall, a once-unthinkable proposition. The surge has increased the urgency of the Democrats’ thus-far futile efforts to blunt the effects of a pair of 2010 federal court rulings – including the Supreme Court’s seminal Citizens United decision – that opened the floodgates for limitless spending, and prompted Obama to flip-flop on his resistance to super PACs on the left.
“We’re not making any attempt to match American Crossroads or any of those groups with television ads,” said Michael Podhorzer, political director for the AFL-CIO. Instead, much of labor’s money will be spent on talking directly with union members and other workers.
“Progressives can’t match all the money going into the system right now because of Citizens United, so we have to have a program that empowers the worker movement,” Podhorzer said.
Much of the public focus has been on how these outside groups will tilt the balance of power in fundraising at the presidential level. But POLITICO has learned that Republicans involved with the groups see the combined efforts playing out just as aggressively at the congressional level, in below-the-radar efforts designed to damage Democratic candidates for the House and Senate.
The officials said that if Romney looks weak in the final stretch, the vast majority of the money could be aimed at winning back the Senate. Republicans need four seats to do that, if Obama is re-elected.
Republicans have taken one big lesson away from campaigns conducted to date in 2011 and 2012: outside money can be the difference-maker in elections.
It was outside money from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson that single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich afloat against Romney. A super PAC spending surge fueled by Wyoming mutual fund guru Foster Friess was credited with powering Rick Santorum to an upset win in the Iowa caucuses. And outside money has helped lift tea party challengers past incumbents like Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) in this year’s primaries.
Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney super PAC, spent twice as much on the air as the campaign did in the thick of the primaries: Through March, the campaign had put $16.7 million into TV, while ROF shelled out $33.2 million.
In Florida, the super PAC outspent the campaign, $8.8 million to $6.7 million. (The campaign can get more spots per dollar because of more favorable rates.) In Michigan, it was $2.3 million to $1.5 million. In Ohio, ROF outspent the campaign, $2.3 million to $1.5 million.
Now Republicans are applying this approach – on steroids – to the remainder of the campaign:
—Groups affiliated with Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists who are among the biggest behind-the-scenes players in Republican politics, will spend the most of any outside outfit on either side: roughly $395 million for issue and political advocacy by groups they support – twice the amount they previously had been expected to commit.
“People are energized because the future of our country and economy is at stake,” said an ally familiar with the Koch effort.
The flagship group in the Koch network is Americans for Prosperity, which gets about half its funds from other donors. [MORE]
