Conservatives' $1 billion spending blitz: Will they buy the election?

Politico reports that conservative super PACs and other outside groups will give Mitt Romney and the GOP a 2-to-1 cash advantage in November

Women from the group Code Pink protest the gathering of elite Republican donors, including billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch in January in Rancho Mirage, Calif.
(Image credit: Crystal Chatham, The Desert Sun/ZUMA Press/CORBIS)

President Obama may or may not raise $1 billion for his re-election campaign, but his conservative rivals will spend at least that much trying to defeat him and the Democratic Party, according to Politico. And that's not counting the $800 million GOP nominee Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee plan to spend on the election. If the coalition of GOP-aligned super PACS and other outside groups hits its target — $395 million from groups tied to the billionaires David and Charles Koch; $300 million from American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, the fundraising powerhouses set up by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie; $100 million from the pro-Romney super PAC Restore our Future — they will likely outspend Obama and Democrats in the House and Senate by at least a 2-to-1 margin. That amount of outside campaign cash is "unlike anything seen before in American politics," say Politico's Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei. Is it enough to guarantee Republican dominance in November?

Yes. It's payback time: This "impressive coalition of conservative fundraisers" will clearly play a huge part in helping Republicans defeat Obama and take control of Congress, says Rick Moran at Pajamas Media. "But we shouldn't expect the Obama campaign to complain much." After all, they outspent Sen. John McCain 3 to 1 in 2008. But bigger than the "staggering" sums involved is where the Kochs and Rove money is going: Precinct-by-precicnt organizing, which "will negate the significant advantage the president enjoyed in 2008."

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