Newt Gingrich lost the Florida primary to Mitt Romney, after initially leading in the polls after his South Carolina win. Gingrich’s numbers spiraled down soon afterwards. Romney had been favored to not just win in Floriday but also by a large margin, so his victory is not surprising.
I was reading two articles about the Florida primary outcome. One from LA Times and the other from the Washington Post. The thing that stuck out at me was how much more money Romney had to spent on television attack ads than Gingrich.
From the Los Angeles Times:
“Romney and his allies outspent Gingrich on the Florida race by nearly 5-to-1, or more than $15 million for Romney to Gingrich's roughly $3 million.”
From the Washington Post:
“Thus one of Romney’s overlooked political achievements: his apparent success following his South Carolina defeat in persuading enough Republican officeholders that only he stood between Gingrich and the nomination. They lined up to denounce Gingrich, reinforcing a massive advertising campaign that pummeled Gingrich unsparingly.”
This just seems unfair. It’s as if the former Massachusetts governor had bought the election - or more accurately, the individuals, corporations, and unions who donated the money to his allied Super PAC. They’re a new mechanism that the Supreme Court approved this year which allows them to get unlimited donations from individuals, corporations, and unions.
From MSNBC:
“While a campaign supporter can only donate $2500 directly to a presidential candidate, he or she can donate unlimited amounts of money to a Super PAC supporting the same candidate.”
These “political action committees” aren’t supposed to be affiliated or communicate with the candidates’ campaigns, but they’re all run by former staffers or people who used to be affiliated with the candidates.
The richest entity is a corporation. That means that if one of these candidates aligns himself with a big corporation, that corporation can fund his entire campaign. Once elected to office, you know that candidate will be doing favors for that corporation. And that’s just wrong. The candidate should be doing favors for the people, not business entities.
It’s also not fair that one candidate can outspend another 5 to 1. Instead of limiting campaign contributions from corporations, the Supreme Court has done the opposite. I think it’s just not fair to the people.
Mitt Romney just won Floriday, Newt Gingrich won South Carolina, and Rick Santorum won Iowa. Even though Romney is favored to win the GOP nomination and the Obama campaign is treating it that way, it seems like Gingrich and Santorum still have a chance.
I have to say the Republican race so far has been entertaining and filled with surprises.
