P resident Obama’s campaign is getting serious traction against his Republican opponent by publicizing Willard Mitt Romney’s deceit about his role at Bain Capital after 1999 and unwillingness to release tax and financial records.
Good for Team Obama! It’s great, albeit unusual, to see a Democratic presidential campaign scoring gains during a pre-election summer .
Unfortunately, the news isn’t all upbeat. Despite his general unlikability, mendacity and secretiveness, Romney enjoys the backing of big-money people and interests who want — and can afford — to buy this election.
The Nation’s Ben Adler shed light on this aspect of the race in a recent article, Republican Negative Ad Spending Explodes.
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. . . Liberals have been unable to keep up with the vast fundraising ability of right-wing Super PACs. Until now the balancing factor has been that Obama’s campaign has outspent Romney’s campaign, especially in swing states.
Even so, the president was already at a net disadvantage when you add in spending by outside groups. According to the Post, these are the cumulative ad spending numbers to date (this does not include the two new Crossroads plans, nor a bunch of smaller groups):
- Obama campaign, $49.6 million
- Romney campaign, $33.8 million
- Restore Our Future (pro-Romney Super PAC), $29.7 million
- American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS (Republican), $29.2 million
- Americans for Prosperity (Republican), $14.9 million
- Democratic National Committee, $6.3 million
- Priorities USA Action (pro-Obama Super PAC), $6.1 million
- American Future Fund (Republican), $5.3 million
The totals from the expenditures above are $79.1 million on Romney’s side and $62 million for Obama. In other words, the incumbent president—who also happens to be a very prodigious fundraiser—is being outspent, thanks to the unlimited contributions of billionaires and corporations. With the $65 million in forthcoming spending by Karl Rove’s groups, Obama will be at an even greater disadvantage.
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Times aren’t easy now, it’s true. But if the thought of a President Romney trashing health care reform, Medicare and Medicaid, privatizing public schools, starting a war with Iran and appointing a couple of Scalia-type Supreme Court justices is enough to make you want to leave the country, it’s time to break loose with a few bucks for Obama and other Democratic candidates.
Remember, all it takes for evil to win is for good people to do nothing.
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I’ve been a steady supporter of Sherrod, who is facing the biggest single onslaught in all of the Senate. I expect I’ll be throwing a few at Baldwin too.
Precisely why I don’t vote for dums and/or goopers.
Where’s George Soros when we need him
I’ll probably have to become less of a tightwad and actually make a contribution to the Obama campaign. But I think wealthy Democrats (and there definitely are some) will become alarmed at the billions of secret dollars pouring into the GOP and will start coughing up more and larger contributions. Call me an optimist…
Good for you, J.R. Brown is a good, liberal senator and from what I’ve seen, Baldwin will make another one.
Randal, a nonvote or vote for anything but a dum this time around will, in reality, be a vote for a gooper. Do you really want a Kasich-grade jerk in the White House?
Tom, I’m sure Soros is giving a lot. He knows Romney types from way back. The ranks of wealthy Democratic contributors have thinned considerably as Wall St. Masters of the Universe decided Obama isn’t their idea of a good time. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is more than the delicate little darlings’ tender feelings can take. So they’re pouring hundreds of millions into vaulting the next George W. (their hero) into the White House.
I already want to leave the country, but it’s not easy to escape the global corporatocracy.
I’m thinking Obama can manage with less money than Romney, and that certain House and Senate campaigns may require more support.
If the Dems would grow a spine and show some real unity in opposing the Right, they would win more. Every one of them should be united in a overturning CU and restoring tax and regulations that allowed our country to function.
If they had the sense and courage to actually side with most Americans, they’d get elected with half the money the Republicans have. Imagine a national campaign slogan, “Democrats for democracy”. What are they afraid of?
Dave, Dems’ failure is one of not convincing enough right-leaning moderates to become, at least, left-leaning moderates, and some to become liberals. They’ve also failed to win the loyalty of too many independents. Democrats can’t go to the people for money and votes only in election years and win the kind of spirited, durable support the GOP enjoys. Dems have needed to replace the New Deal coalition for more than 30 years, but that remains undone. They thought they could get by with union support, but that eroded as our manufacturing base all but disappeared and unions shrunk. (Credit Bubba and other DLC “New Democrats” for putting that trend on steroids.)
You call Dems spineless, with some good reason. But the larger reality is that to get working majorities in Congress Dems must recruit and help elect people in purple and even red states and districts. Once they’ve rearranged their lives to serve in Congress, spent months or years raising money and slogged through a campaign, few people want it to be one term and out. Even if these candidates are personally liberal, they realize they only got to Congress by winning over some non-liberal voters. So, if these red- and purple-state Dems proceed to vote all liberal all the time, they know they won’t get to vote in Congress for very long.
Those candidates aren’t just being selfish. Congress has a strong seniority culture. Freshman can accomplish very little. Two-term senators and three-term reps are just starting to hit their stride in being able to get things done, if they’re ever going to. Those red- and purple-state Dems are weak Dems for understandable reasons.
Sure, there’s always a few rats in the wood pile, but analyze the realities, put yourself in their place, and some of some Dems’ spinelessness at least becomes understandable. And, understanding is the key to reforming what’s wrong.
In the meantime, however tepid your enthusiasm for Dems, remember how important it is to spare the country another Bush-grade president and the kind of Congress we had from ’94-2006.
I have a theory. Wall Street wants Obama to win. Because as all the cash is shoveled at the GOP a lot of it is going for local races and that’s what they want. A total lock on the legislative process.
No where to run to eh Dave? Sorry but the whore house of capitol hill remains the same. Nothing’s going to change unless we make it happen.
S.W.,
Let us hope that Misters Adelson, Rove, Koch, Koch, and Romney all wake up with a huge knot in their stomachs on November 7, having realized that the millions of dollars they have spent over the past several years to purchase election victories has been in vain, and that Democrats have retaken the House and kept control of the Senate and White House! Such self-centered treachery by the far-right must end in bitter, expensive defeat for them! If these bastards were REAL patriots, they would use their money to finance infrastructure projects the whole country would benefit from, rather than trying to buy power and influence by subverting our electoral process.
Demeur, the goal of taking over state legislatures, the better to redistrict state after state in their own favor so they can keep control of Congress, has been a big GOP goal since the days of Gingrich, Armey and then Hastert and DeLay running the House. They’ve enjoyed a fair amount of success with it, too.
Jack, you’re talking about unscrupulous people with no appreciation of history and a perverse sense of entitlement. They seem to believe the might of their money makes right — and should. They have no concept of the damage their overbearing chicanery, their runaway selfishness, is doing to our democracy at a fundamental level. No idea that what they’re doing can easily lead to something that can’t be reformed or undone without a revolution.
But be clear on this, though. We still have a democracy. The Kochs, Adelsons and others like them are getting away with what they’re doing because too few of our fellow Americans have bothered to pay attention, get involved, run for office or financially support and vote for candidates hellbent on reforming the system. Instead, we got the politically potent, well-financed AstroTurf tea partyers and then the politically impotent, poor-as-church-mice Occupy protesters.
Good post for reminding folks about what needs to be done. I sent a lot of money to Mr. Obama in 2008. Times are a bit tougher now, but I will be sending him contributions on a regular basis from now until the election.
Thanks for the reminder.
I’ve been sending a few dollars along to the President and to the DSCC as I can and will continue. I am going to link your post to a message to my Democratic friends and leaners on Facebook. I’d love to put it on my FB wall but I have so many right-wing family and friends, I’m afraid it would just spur some giving to the wrong side!
Thanks, Shaw; that’s the spirit. If enough of us send even modest donation, the money adds up. We need to get more Dems elected to Congress, too, so Obama won’t be hamstrung the way he’s been in his first term.
Terrell, welcome back! I’ll trust your judgment about the advisability of putting the post on your FB wall.