Super PACs: Not so influential after all

Our democracy may survive after all, said Neil King in The Wall Street Journal. In the run-up to this campaign season, earnest good-government types warned that shadowy “Super PACs,” made possible by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, would enable corporations and millionaires to buy the election with a tsunami of negative ads. But even after spending $250 million so far, “these Super PACs are looking less than super,” with little evident impact on the election. Mitt Romney in particular was supposed to benefit from Super PAC money, said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com, and indeed, pro-Romney Super PACs like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads have outspent pro-Obama Super PACs by as much as three-to-one in some swing states. Yet Obama still leads in the polls. Democrats went into this election terrified that Super PACs would give Republicans an overwhelming financial advantage, but that’s “one of the dogs that hasn’t barked in this campaign.”

True, but this election isn’t over, said Gavin Aronsen in MotherJones.com. Despite an incoherent campaign, Romney trails by only three points nationally. “Super PACs may have helped keep Romney in the game,” and will do their best in remaining weeks to flood the airwaves with attack ads. So far, though, Democrats have spent their money far more wisely, said Paul Blumenthal in HuffingtonPost.com. In critical swing states such as Ohio and Florida, President Obama’s re-election campaign has actually outspent the Republican Super PACs. Counting the efforts of both sides’ campaigns and Super PACs, 7,083 pro-Obama ads ran in Ohio in September, compared with only 2,690 for Romney. Since Obama has jumped ahead in both Ohio and Florida, it suggests that money and political ads do matter.

But money isn’t everything, said Ben Smith in BuzzFeed.com. Many of the ultra-rich donors behind the Super PACs, like the Koch brothers and gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson, haven’t the first clue how to run a political campaign. The pro-GOP Super PACs have squandered small fortunes on House and Senate candidates who don’t stand a chance. In the presidential race, the Super PACs hurt Romney by bombarding voters with “a welter of mixed messages,” while Obama’s campaign focused relentlessly on a single idea: Romney is the enemy of the middle class. Unless this election swings soon, quite a few very wealthy men will soon find themselves “explaining to their wives why they wasted millions of dollars.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up