We can take some solace in the fact that some of the big money from the Super-PACs, Karl Rove, Koch brothers, invisible donors, and so on are being pulled from presidential ads in swing states. That’s the good news. The bad is that it looks like it’s starting to be reallocated to Senate races around the country.
With Romney seemingly incapable of going a day without some kind of major gaffe and Obama’s path to re-election becoming clearer, we need to concentrate much of our GOTV efforts in holding the Senate.
One of the most important duties of the Senate, of course, is putting nominated judges on the bench. If the President Obama is re-elected, but the Senate goes red, there will be few to any judges allowed to get through the process – including the Supreme Court justices we expect to retire in the next four years. We already know that through the use of the filibuster and other procedural methods, the Republicans have stopped most of the president’s nominations.
Paul Blementhal of Huffington Post has a startling article out today about just this phenomenon.
Since the beginning of last year, these conservative groups have poured more than $50 million into ads -- both those reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and so-called "issue" ads that are not -- targeting seven of the closest Senate races in the country, according to sources in Democratic campaigns, other ad-watching sources, and a series of publicly-reported figures and those collected from news reports and press releases. This compares to the slightly more than $20 million spent by liberal-allied groups on ads in these seven races.
Being outspent this much is hurting the chances of incumbents like Sherrod Brown who insists this wouldn’t even be a race if it weren’t for all of the outside money. They expect to spend about $25 million to hold his seat. His campaign says,
This is really a test case in this race and a test case post-Citizens United about whether a candidate and a campaign even matters anymore
In Virginia, former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine has already seen more than $10 million spent against him. Conservative groups had spent $10 million against Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill before her opponent, Rep. Todd Akin, began to discuss "legitimate rape." Nearly $6 million in outside group ads have already gone up against Montana Sen. Jon Tester. Rep. Shelley Berkley, running for Senate in Nevada, has been targeted by $4.8 million in outside group ads, and Rep. Tammy Baldwin, running in Wisconsin, has seen $4.5 million in ads against her. Heidi Heitkamp, the Democratic candidate in North Dakota, has seen $1.9 million spent against her.
Read the article. It's sure to fire you up. Are you ready to go? GOTV!!!