$200 Million GOP Campaign Avalanche Planned, Democrats Stunned

Posted 07-8-10 10:09 AM Updated: 07-9-10 09:36 AM

Sam Stein
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/08/democrats-fear-they-cant_n_639202.html

Over the past few weeks, top Democratic Party
strategists have been passed a chart by a concerned,
well-respected operative underscoring the daunting task
they face in the 2010 elections.

On the left hand side of the chart is a list of ten
Republican aligned institutions, ranging from the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce to the Family Research Council.
Next to it is a column listing the amount of money each
group has pledged to spend by Election Day. A third
column on the right details what those groups actually
spent in 2008 on federal elections.

The number at the bottom delivers the key message. If
their pledges are fulfilled, these ten groups will
unleash more than $200 million in election-focused
spending -- roughly $37 million more than every single
independent group spent on the 2008 presidential
campaign combined. This time around, almost every
single penny will be going to Republican candidates or
causes.

[See chart of pledges of Republican contributions 
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2010-07-08-Table.png
-- moderator]

(Update: A Democratic operative makes the case that the
total could rise to roughly $300 million if it includes
additional pledges for campaign spending from Americans
for Prosperity, promising $45 million, the Club for
Growth, $24 million, the National Rifle Association,
$20 million, and the Susan B. Anthony List, $6 million)

Democrats who received the chart -- which include staff
at both congressional committees, the major unions, and
many of the most respected campaign hands in the party
-- have admitted to greeting it with nervous
expletives. It has been passed along to big fundraisers
in hopes that they will be compelled to open up their
checkbooks.

One top-ranking Democratic operative involved in
crafting campaign strategy said he "wouldn't be
surprised" if outside groups on the Republican side
"outspend us four-to-one." Another top official at a
campaign committee called it "one hell of a wake-up
call to the left."

"Despite accomplishing much of the check list on the
progressive agenda," the official added, "they risk
losing it all unless they come together and put their
money on the table."

Special interest groups have long tried (with some
success) to tip the scales of political election
results. But what seems in store for 2010 is historic
in nature. The chart was updated late last week after
it was reported that the Chamber would make a $75
million commitment to the upcoming elections -- more
than twice the amount it had spent in the 2008 cycle
(which was then a high-water mark).

The business lobby's expenditures -- done almost
exclusively for the benefit of Republican candidates --
would alone have a profound impact on races across the
country. But the Chamber is being accompanied by a host
of other, ideologically-aligned groups promising to
empty similarly deep pockets. American Crossroads, the
outlet run by former Bush strategist Karl Rove, has
pledged $52 million in expenditures. American Action
Network, which is headed by a host of high-ranking
GOPers, is promising another $25 million.

"In the context or recent history, it is unprecedented,
but speaks to how much is at stake in Washington:
power, money and access will be awarded to the winning
party," said Craig Shirley, a biographer of Ronald
Reagan and Newt Gingrich and a longtime adviser to
conservatives. "Everyone in America now has some sort
of stake or interest in the affairs of the national
government."

Can the money be used effectively? The traditional
conduits for cash are the campaign committees which
recruit donors through promises of organization,
coherent messaging, and effective leadership. But as
Shirley notes, activists may end up circumventing the
Republican National Committee out of concerns about the
competency of its chairman, Michael Steele. The
National Republican Senatorial Committee hasn't been
treated with similar skepticism by the party's base,
but it has only $18 million cash on hand at this point
in time.

In interviews with the Huffington Post, several high-
ranking Republicans expressed confidence that the
outside groups could effectively fill the void the RNC
(and, to a lesser extent, the NRSC) was creating.
Leadership at these institutions, one operative said,
are all veterans of recent high-stakes campaigns, if
not well respect tacticians in their own right. Federal
law does not, moreover, explicitly prohibit them from
coordinating messaging or target lists. They simply
can't do so with the campaign committees.

As for the capacity of these groups to actually raise
the cash, that too is debatable. It's one thing to
promise $52 million in expenditures, as Rove has. It's
another thing to deliver. American Crossroads was
mocked for raising practically nothing in May 2010,
then returned in June claiming $8.5 million in new
donations.

Democrats, while predicting that the $200 million
objective likely won't be reached, are prepping for an
avalanche nonetheless. "It is just one more chess piece
on the board," said J.B. Poersch, executive director of
the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "Today, I
assume, at least the Chamber's money is real because it
was real before. If they say they are going to spend
$75 million, I have to assume it is real."

"There's no doubt the Bush boys and big corporate
interests -- those who lost the most in the last two
years -- are going to try to buy their way back in to
power," said Hari Sevugan, press secretary for the DNC.
"We are confident that Democrats, as well independents,
who don't want that to happen, will put up the
resources to ensure that it doesn't."

That confidence is far from universally shared. While
it's anticipated that both parties will be able to
maintain approximate parity in the amount of money they
can spend on congressional races, top strategists are
resigned to the likelihood that Democratic interest
groups won't match their Republican counterparts. So
far this cycle, the activist base -- personified by
groups like MoveOn.org -- has been motivated by issue-
advocacy and primary challenges, not the Democratic
Party's well being.

The major unions are pledging massive resources for the
2010 elections. To this point, they've outspent
corporate groups. But their priorities aren't
necessarily in line with the campaign committees and
the White House. And in interviews with the Huffington
Post, top officials held no illusions that they can go
cent-for-cent with the Chamber, let alone the nine
other Republican-leaning groups.

"Typically, labor unions are outspent by corps around 3
to 1 on elections," said the SEIU's national political
director Jon Youngdahl. "We fear that due to Citizens
United [the Supreme Court case allowing unlimited
spending on campaigns] those numbers are only going to
grow. It looks like these are the first signs of that
growth."

"Will the labor movement be able to match corporate
money? No. We never have been and never will," said
Karen Ackerman, political director of the AFL-CIO. "But
that is not the strength of the labor movement. Our
greatest strength is union members and their families."

Faced with a potentially deep financial deficit,
grumbling has started to intensify. In private, White
House officials are accusing unions of wasting money on
fruitless primary challenges; congressional officials
are accusing the White House of not doing enough
fundraising on their behalf (Obama has done 49 events
so far, including two on Thursday, raising over $46
million dollars for candidates and committees); and
union officials are blaming congressional Democrats for
not passing an agenda that could motivate voters.

It's a far cry from two years ago, when the Obama
presidential campaign had a unifying influence on the
entire party. The growing concern among strategists is
that it could end up producing a self-fulfilling
prophesy in which each faction -- convinced about
forthcoming midterm losses and skeptical of each other
-- can't generate a comprehensive counter-campaign. The
one glimmer of hope is that the GOP, even with its deep
pockets, could stumble.

"Nature hates a vacuum," said Douglas MacKinnon, a
longtime Republican hand and former spokesman for
Senator Bob Dole. "And right now the country is taking
it out on Democrats to a certain extent. But the
country is also looking to Republicans for
leadership... and what they are seeing is next to
silence because the GOP is just waiting for democrats
to self-destruct. Some of the air is coming out of the
Republican balloon because they are not stepping into
that vacuum or offering solution."

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