Outside Spending Vastly Favors Romney

This campaign is different from those of the past. In the past, most (if not all) spending to support the candidate of either political party was done by the candidate's campaign or the party that had nominated that candidate. That is no longer true. Thanks to a misguided Supreme Court decision (Citizens United vs. FEC) there has been a ton of spending by outside groups in this year's presidential campaign -- groups that supposedly have no connection to a candidate or political party.

How big is this outside spending? According to NBC News, there has been $605.7 million dollars spent on television and radio ads supporting the two major party candidates (Romney and Obama). At least $267 million of that spending was done by outside groups (like super-PACs). That means that so far this year those outside groups have spent 44.08% of all the money spent on campaign ads -- which tells us that the campaigns of the two candidates have only spent 55.92% of those advertising dollars.

That's a huge change from past campaigns. It now seems that the rich are willing to spend enormous sums to elect their preferred candidate (since most of the giving to these outside groups has come from only a couple of hundred people and corporations). These rich people are not giving enormous sums of money because they are altruistic. They expect their candidate to pay them back by giving them massive new tax cuts and deregulating financial markets.

I would have thought it was obvious that most of that money was spent to support the candidate of the rich (who is himself very rich) -- Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie). And that turns out to be true. Over $212 million of the $267 million spent by outside groups (or about 79.40%) has been to support Willard. In other words, the spending by outside groups has favored Willard over the president by a 4 to 1 margin.

Unfortunately, it seems the American people don't realize that at all. While 48% of them say they are very concerned about the outside spending and 27% say they are somewhat concerned, most don't have a realistic view of how that money is being spent. Here is what a Washington Post/ABC News Poll, taken between September 7th and 9th, showed about who people think the outside money is being spent to support. The chart above shows which candidate the liberals, conservatives, and moderates think the money is being spent to support. Here are the opinions of some other groups:


ALL REGISTERED VOTERS
Romney...............41%
Obama...............29%
Both...............16%

REPUBLICANS
Romney...............28%
Obama...............36%
Both...............17%

DEMOCRATS
Romney...............59%
Obama...............19%
Both...............11%

INDEPENDENTS
Romney...............38%
Obama...............31%
Both...............20%

MEN
Romney...............42%
Obama...............27%
Both...............18%

WOMEN
Romney...............40%
Obama...............30%
Both...............15%

WHITES
Romney...............39%
Obama...............28%
Both...............18%

NON-WHITES
Romney...............48%
Obama...............34%
Both...............11%

18 TO 39 YEARS OLD
Romney...............43%
Obama...............32%
Both...............16%

40 TO 64 YEARS OLD
Romney...............43%
Obama...............29%
Both...............16%

65 YEARS OLD & OVER
Romney...............36%
Obama...............23%
Both...............17%

UNDER $50,000
Romney...............40%
Obama...............35%
Both...............10%

$50,000 TO $100,000
Romney...............45%
Obama...............26%
Both...............18%

OVER $100,000
Romney...............44%
Obama...............23%
Both...............23%

As you can see, every single demographic group underestimates the percentage of outside money being spent on Mitt Romney. Only one group comes close to the truth that most money is being spent for Romney (nearly 80%) -- the liberals, and only 69% of them know that. About 75% of the public say they are at least somewhat worried about the outside spending. I wonder if they would even be more worried if they realized the spending was so one-sided.