Another Example of How Political Pundits (and Democrats) Don’t Understand the New Economics of Campaign Finance

Miniscule Spending on Ads is Called ‘Gargantuan’

Two factors, the accumulation of great wealth and the willingness and ability to use that great wealth to influence elections have changed the economics of American political campaigns.  For almost all races Conservative candidates will have almost unlimited funding.  The Mitt Romney campaign may well have $2 billion to spend, a billion from direct fund raising and another billion from wealthy donors operating outside the campaign.

But many who write on political issues still don’t understand just how much the game has changed, or how much money is coming.  Case in point is this Roll Call article.

Crossroads GPS Begins Gargantuan Anti-Obama TV Push

By Joshua Miller Posted at 12:23 p.m. on July 6

Crossroads GPS, the juggernaut Republican-affiliated group, today announced a $25 million television ad blitz over the next month knocking President Barack Obama for his handling of the economy.

The effort begins with an ad, titled “Excuses,” that will start airing next week on broadcast TV in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.

“America’s jobless rate is still too high,” says a female narrator backed by gloomy music. “Barack Obama’s got lots of excuses for the bad economy.”

The ad then shows a montage of Obama talking about reasons the economy has not been doing as well as it could be, including “headwinds coming from Europe,” “a string of bad luck,” “an earthquake in Japan,” “an Arab Spring,” among others.

The female narrator then comes back in: “But Obama never blames Washington’s wild spending and sky-rocketing debt. Tell Obama, for real job growth, cut the debt.”

The new ad is backed by about $8 million, but another ad could be swapped into that buy.

Notice the headline contains the word ‘gargantuan’ with respect to spending.  How much is that?  It’s $25 million.  In any other year the gargantuan term would be correct.  In 2012 is just chump change, something billionaires can reach into their pockets and get without even making a dent in their net worth.

For Democrats, it’s like they are sitting on beach watching the small waves roll in, thinking they are big waves and being totally ignorant of the tidal wave that is coming in September.