Excerpt
GWEN IFILL (Newshour): Now to campaign politics and how outside spending might shape the 2012 election like never before.
When it comes to financing presidential campaigns, an entirely new playbook is being written. The traditional yardstick, the money raised by individual candidates, may count less this time. Instead hundreds of millions of dollars may come from a relatively new political animal, the super PAC. The financing vehicle sprang up in the wake of a 2010 Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, which wiped away limits on corporate and labor union campaign spending.
A candidate's ability to raise money on his or her own does still count for a lot. Financial reports released this weekend show Texas Gov. Rick Perry outpacing his Republican rivals, hauling in more than $17 million for the third quarter. With $15 million in the bank, he put away half-a-million dollars more than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who pulled in $14 million during the same period.
No other major GOP contenders raised as much. Ron Paul was next with more than $8 million, but the rest raised substantially less and also had far less cash on hand.
As for the man they all hope to replace, President Obama brought in nearly $43 million last quarter. And by the end of September, the incumbent Democrat had $61 million in the bank, more than all the Republicans combined. Some of that will likely be spent responding to attack ads from the new super PACs, like this one from the conservative group American Crossroads airing in North Carolina and Virginia.
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