The GOP presidential candidates and the groups supporting them have spent a combined total of $38.1 million so far, just in campaign ads. A whopping $19.6 of that has been spent on just negative advertising. That's according to an
analysis by the
Washington Post based on the last financial disclosures from the campaigns.
So more than 50 percent of the spending on ads has been negative so far in 2012, compared to just six percent in 2008—for the entire primary season. If you thought the Republican crowd was nastier than ever this year, you were right.
In 2008, one of harshest ads Mitt Romney ran ahead of the Iowa caucuses criticized the immigration position of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), but only after calling him “an honorable man."
In 2012, such a nicety seems quaint. [...]
All of this invective is flowing in an election season when Republicans had hoped to train their resources on beating President Obama. [...]
But a wildly unpredictable GOP nomination battle has upended that plan and dissolved the truce. It is happening largely because of new rules governing campaign money. Also, this race has a different dynamic: a front-runner who lacks a prohibitive lead.
Another difference between 2008 and 2012 was the inability of Republican candidates to attack war hero/prisoner of war John McCain in any really nasty way. There's no compelling reason among those running this year to take it easy on one another, not when they've got the limitless pockets of their SuperPACs to scorch the earth. With no external constraints upon them, they're free to let their true natures, and desperation, show. In terms of scorching the earth, the outside group spending on negative ads is an astonishing 72 percent, while for the campaigns themselves, it is 27 percent.
And speaking of desperation, note how Mitt Romney is absolutely dwarfing the rest of the field in spending on negativity. He's more than tripled the negative ad spending of the other candidates combined, and he and the groups behind him more than half of all the negative ads on the airwaves.