Meme Busting

President Obama, his campaign and the lapdog media (pardon the redundancy) have been working really hard to perpetuate a meme that the dreaded, evil super-PACs are going to buy the election for Romney. 

Most of the media coverage of the 2012 campaign treats a Republican advantage in super-PAC spending as a given. This assumption is echoed by increasingly dire comments from President Obama, his advisers, and other Democrats.

At a New York City fundraiser last month, President Obama lamented that opposition to his reelection bid will be fueled by “$500 million in super-PAC negative ads that are going to be run over the course of the next five months that will try to feed on those fears and those anxieties and that frustration.”

“We put out a fund-raising letter because we’re facing about a billion dollars of super-PAC spending,” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, told CNN. He has also referred to “the Rove and Koch brothers contract killers over there in super-PAC land.”

“With every passing week, Democratic insiders are becoming more and more panicked that, by November, their Republican opponents will have buried them under a mountain of money,” reports The New Republic. “The GOP money machine — that is, American Crossroads, the super PAC co-founded by Karl Rove; Americans for Prosperity, the group backed by the billionaire Koch brothers; and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — has vowed to spend $1 billion combined before Election Day.”

The gap between the President's rhetoric and reality is (again) a Grand Canyon like chasm.

The only catch is that the actual spending by super PACs so far this year tells a quite different story. The truth is that the super PAC founded by top Obama staffers and its aligned “independent” groups are outspending groups that oppose the president by roughly two to one.

According to Federal Election Commission data filed from January 2011 through July 3, super PACs and all groups making “independent expenditures” in the political arena have spent $35.3 million in opposition to Romney, and only $9 million in opposition to Obama. Rove’s American Crossroads, for example, has spent $3.1 million this cycle. But only $158,126.17 of that has been spent in efforts opposing President Obama, and a separate $7,500 has been spent on Web ads supporting Mitt Romney. For perspective, the group spent $358,202.98 in mid-June in just one expenditure on “TV/Media Purchases” opposing Democratic Senate candidate Tim Kaine in Virginia, and then spent the same sum a week later in the same race.

What’s more, the advertising and other efforts by Obama’s allies have been relentlessly negative. Every expenditure by every independent group must be filed with the FEC (usually within a matter of days) and must be classified as in support of or in opposition to a particular candidate. The amounts range from millions of dollars for advertising campaigns to $12.50 for “staff time” spent on a press release or e-mail to support or oppose a candidate. Overall, in addition to the $35.3 million and $9 million mentioned above, independent groups have spent $7.7 million on ads and efforts classified as in support of Romney, while they spent only $961,854.62 in support of Obama.

Now I can hear the Obama apologists now....but, but wait....the majority of that Anti-Romney money was spent by fellow Republicans during the primary....WRONG.

One might assume that the heavy ratio of anti-Romney spending to anti-Obama spending stems from the Republican primary campaign, and that does indeed account for a portion of the disparity. About $14.9 million of the “oppose Romney” total came from the pro–Newt Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future. The Red, White, and Blue Fund, a super PAC backing Rick Santorum, spent $687,306.75 in anti-Romney efforts.

But that still leaves a two-to-one spending ratio of liberal anti-Romney efforts to conservative anti-Obama efforts. In fact, the president’s allies run the single biggest-spending and most negative super PAC of all: Priorities USA Action, founded by Obama’s former deputy White House press secretary, Bill Burton; Sean Sweeney, the former chief of staff to Rahm Emanuel; and Harold Ickes, who was deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. This super PAC has spent $13.5 million in opposition to Romney so far, outspending all the super-PAC efforts opposing the president combined. While Priorities USA Action is often described as a “pro-Obama” super PAC in news coverage, it has yet to spend a single penny that it categorizes as “supporting” President Obama; all of its spending is classified as “opposing” Mitt Romney.

And it's not just Priorities USA....all of the usual suspects are present in the "Anti-Romney" spending spree.

Indeed, almost every major liberal group has spent funds on ads or other efforts attacking Romney. The following totals are just what these groups have spent in efforts to “oppose Romney”:

    The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees: $2.5 million.
    The Planned Parenthood Action Fund: $1.6 million.
    The Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education: $872,342.03.
    The League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund: $544,561.23.
    MoveOn.org Political Action: $223,636.45.
    The International Association of Fire Fighters’ FIREPAC (Fire Fighters Interested in Registration and Education PAC): $96,498.12.
    NARAL Pro-Choice America: $87,500.88.
    Comedian Stephen Colbert’s Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow: $75,594.40.
    Democratic Governors Association’s DGA Action: $45,892.90.
    Florida Watch Action, Inc.: $27.165.36.
    Human Rights Campaign: $25,895.56.

Conservative groups are in the mix - but not nearly to the extent that the liberal groups are.  However, the post-Citizens United decision meme that there would be a flood of PAC money this year just isn't so.....

Despite the liberal narrative of a deluge of outside cash from super PACs, the outside spending for all races, including Senate, House, and gubernatorial races, is roughly parallel to that of the major presidential campaigns. As of July 3, all independent groups and super PACs combined had spent $206.7 million, according to FEC records. Through May 31, the Romney campaign had spent $105.2 million, and the Obama campaign had spent $148.7 million.

Team Obama has been spinning madly to try to keep up the pretense that they are being outspent.  However, the facts are there for anyone with the intellectual curiosity to actually do the research...which automatically excludes Obama's lapdog media.