Romney, Super PACs and 501 Groups

Previous posts have noted Romney's links to outside groups. At Open Secrets, Robert Maguire writes:

Yesterday the long-developing ties between two Republican super PACs and Mitt Romney's campaign grew stronger when the campaign announced that veteran GOP strategist Ed Gillespie would come aboard as a senior adviser.

Gillespie is a founder of and adviser to American Crossroads, which has stockpiled $26.9 million so far this election cycle, much of which is expected to be spent helping the Republican nominee; it's increasingly likely that will be Romney. Another Crossroads adviser is Carl Forti, who is also president of the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The two super PACs, awash in money, share a number of benefactors. Many of the largest donors to Crossroads are also major donors to Restore Our Future, and vice versa. And many have maxed out to the Romney campaign itself, which has been struggling, relatively speaking, to raise cash.

Other donors are and likely will remain completely unknown to the public because they’ve given to Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) group linked to American Crossroads that does not have to disclose the sources of its funds. OpenSecrets Blog has been able to find at least one documented donation of $4 million to the group by the Republican Jewish Coalition. A number of Romney donors sit on the board of RJC, and a handful of them -- Paul Singer, David Flaum, Lewis Eisenberg and Sam Fox -- are also major donors to Restore Our Future.

Steven Law Talks About the Campaign

American Crossroads President and CEO Steven Law discusses the2012 race on Varney and Co.    

Troubling Economic Numbers for Obama

Josh Boak writes at Politico:

Americans’ take-home pay — one of the critical economic benchmarks for presidents seeking reelection — declined in January and February.

Research shows that the amount of money Americans earn after taxes and inflation is one of the most reliable predictors of a president’s November chances — more so than the unemployment rate. In the past year, most Americans have barely seen a bump in earnings, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

But the figures for the past two months create the potential for an even more dire situation for the White House: Wages increased at a slower rate than energy prices, so the measure known as disposable personal income dropped. With take-home pay effectively falling 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent in January and February, respectively. If take-home pay continues to fall, as it has for the first two months of the year, President Barack Obama would be lucky to get 45 percent of the vote, according to a model developed by former Harvard University professor Douglas Hibbs.

From the Bureau of Economic Analysis

Fat Lady Has Busy Day

A certain cliche grabbed Mitt Romney's coattails last night.

From Newser:  "Did you hear it? The sound of the fat lady singing as Mitt Romney swept Wisconsin, Maryland, and DC last night? These pundits sure did."
From The Washington Post: "That sound you hear? It’s the fat lady singing."
From ABC: "It is done. Fini. The fat lady has sung."
From Joe Scarborough: "Regardless, the fat lady has sung."

 

Seniors and the Campaign

Resurgent Republic reports on a focus group of seniors:

When asked how they will evaluate President Obama come November, most respondents in our Target Voter Series pointed to the economy or their personal financial situation. These seniors were consistent with that theme, but this target voter group added the quality and cost of health care as a top priority. Many surveys have shown that health care is a top priority for older females, while older men tend to worry more about fiscal issues. In our groups, however, senior males and females were equally likely to bring up the health care issue.

Additional key findings include:

• With few exceptions, these seniors were satisfied with their current health care coverage and nervous about changing what is perceived as a good thing.
• These seniors recalled few specifics of ObamaCare. Recall of what is in the legislation ranges from very fuzzy to non-existent. However, when reminded, they did express negative reactions to specific features like the individual mandate, Independent Payment Advisory Board, and Medicare cuts.
• Seniors tended to cite the "wars" as more of a leading cause of the nation’s escalating debt crisis than entitlement spending.
• Since many of these voters have a fixed income, they were acutely aware of changes in home values and everyday costs (i.e., health care, food, and gas prices).

Shrinking Traditional TV Audience Spawns Targeted Online Ads

Jeremy W. Peters writes at The New York Times:

Just because you own a D.V.R. or watch television online does not mean political commercials are not coming soon to a screen near you.

Mitt Romney’s campaign thinks it has found a way to get its ads in front of the increasing number of voters who are not watching traditional television: Find these people online, and show them the ads there.

Here in Wisconsin, where the Republican primary is Tuesday, carefully targeted potential voters will see two Romney commercials on their Web browsers. One is a positive message hailing the candidate’s economic and business credentials. The other is an attack criticizing Rick Santorum as a Washington insider who compromises his core beliefs.

Both commercials, which have been running on local television stations across the state, have gone unseen by many voters — up to one-third of them, by some estimates.

The Romney campaign and a team of online behavior analysts have spent 18 months trying to fight television advertising’s law of diminishing returns, sifting through data on the browsing habits of tens of millions of computer users as the campaign builds a richly detailed cache of potential supporters.

In doing so, Mr. Romney’s strategists are hoping to turn the Web into a political persuasion tool, signaling a shift in the way modern campaigns view digital advertising. It is no longer merely a supplement for traditional media like television. In some cases, it is a substitute entirely.

A survey conducted last May on voters’ television viewing habits, which is often cited by Romney advisers, found that 31 percent of likely voters had not watched television “live” — that is, at the time it was being broadcast, as opposed to online or on a recording device — in the previous week. And of the 17 percent who said they mostly watched programs recorded on devices like a D.V.R., a large majority skipped through ads most of the time. [emphasis added] The nationwide telephone survey was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm, and SEA Polling and Strategic Design, a Democratic polling firm.

Cost Per Vote, Cost Per Delegate

At National Journal, Major Garrett does the math:

The Paul math goes like this: According to his latest filing with the Federal Election Commission, Paul has spent $32,766,465. He's received 1,079,753 votes for a cost-per-vote total of $30.35. He's won 66 delegates for a cost-per-delegate total of $496,461.

Doug Wead, a senior Paul adviser offered the following:

"The delegate counts, such as those promoted by the New York Times and The Associated Press are pure media fiction. So your delegate-per-dollar is skewed. For example, they (NYT and AP) say the delegate count in Iowa is Santorum 14, Romney 12 and Paul 1. We have one delegate in Iowa? Hmm. I don't want to reveal too much, but our delegate strategy is doing just fine and it is worth every dollar."

Maybe so. But the raw numbers based on available delegate counts don't look good for Paul.

Romney's cost-per-vote (CPV) total is $16.18. His cost-per-delegate (CPD) is $118,218.
The math: $66,793,395 spent with 4,127,917 votes and 565 delegates.

Santorum's CPV is an amazing $4.56 cents. That's just over a quarter of Romney's and about a seventh of Paul's.

Santorum's CPD is $50,873.

He's spent $13,023,588 and won 2,850,546 votes and 256 delegates. Imagine if Romney or Paul were this efficient? Imagine if the federal government or a private business was this efficient?