POLITICS - The Buying of American Elections

"Outside Groups Spend Big on Campaign Ads"
PBS Newshour 10/11/2010


Excerpts from transcript

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The main targets of Democrats' criticism have been the conservative political entity American Crossroads, its nonprofit affiliate, Crossroads GPS, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Crossroads groups, co-founded by former Bush political advisers Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, have pledged to spend upwards of $50 million on behalf of Republican candidates this fall. The Chamber, meanwhile, has vowed to dole out $75 million on the midterms.

The Democratic National Committee released an ad this weekend accusing the groups of using donations from foreigners on campaign ads.
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JUDY WOODRUFF: I'm very well. And good to see you. But this is such a diversity -- a disparity, $46 million on the part of conservative and Republican outside groups vs. $7 million on the part of Democratic groups.

Is this consistent with what we have seen in the past?

EVAN TRACEY, chief operating officer, Campaign Media Analysis Group: Well, it's interesting, because when you sort of look at the recent history of campaign finance, it used to be that the parties were the big purveyors of this, what used to be called soft money, and it was fairly equal.

After McCain-Feingold, the Democrats really took a strong edge with the 527s and those groups that were basically backed by the Soroses and the labor unions. But now, post-Citizens United, you really see that Republicans have gotten kind of back in the game in a big way and are really outspending the Democrats in these key congressional and Senate races, not just in the amount of money they're spending, in the scope and the coverage of races right now that they're sitting.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Post-Citizens United. You're referring to that Supreme Court decision that said it was all right for a corporate interest and private interest...

(CROSSTALK)

EVAN TRACEY: Right. That's the one, that sort of the latest rule change, which has both changed how the money gets in and the timing of when these campaigns and these groups can spend it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, what are these groups spending their money on? You track advertising. Is all of this money going into television?

EVAN TRACEY: The majority of the Republican money right now is going into television. And it's not just regular TV ads. It's negative ads.

About 90 percent of all these ads right now have been negative ads, so they're adding an awful lot of help, both on the message side for campaigns, but also on the tonnage side.
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JUDY WOODRUFF: So, (Democratic add) to other ads you're seeing on the left?

EVAN TRACEY: Well, you know, what's interesting about theirs, there are not that many of these groups right now that are doing much work for these Democrat Senate candidates right now.

Here's one example. But, again, they're talking about the Chamber. In other words, it's very process-oriented, the message, right now. And I think you're seeing that a lot from Democrats this fall, is that they're really trying to focus on process, campaign finance, and having a hard time kind of linking this back into policy.

So, it certainly helps in a race like Kentucky, which is going to be very close, to have this outside money coming to their aid, but there's really not a lot of examples of this for Democrats right now in these Senate and House races.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And -- and, so, in other words, around the country, you're not seeing a consistent theme everywhere?

EVAN TRACEY: And no. That's the thing. With the Republican groups, it's very consistent. They're trying to find new ways to say Obama and Pelosi.

The Democrat groups are trying to find issues that they can exploit in individual races. But just on the Senate, Republican groups have run ads in 18 different Senate races this year, Democrats in nine. In the House, Republicans have been in over 60 races, Democrats in just over six right now.

So, you're really not seeing the groups do very much work for Democrats in these House and Senate races.

Bold-blue emphasis mine

As I've said before, the IS the buying of elections thanks to the unprecedented Supreme Court decision making corporations = individual people in the arena of political speech.

This is also one of the things that Democrats have a history of being short in execution, the long-term and consistent, message to American voters year around.

This is what Republicans have been doing since day-one after the election of Obama, in trying to brainwash Americans into believing (the lie) everything today is Obama's (and the Democrats) fault.