Attack Ads, Super Pac | featured news

Have conservative groups bungled their chance to help defeat Barack Obama? Fueled with tens of millions of dollars in unlimited contributions, a network of GOP super PACs and nonprofit groups began the year with heady talk of bringing down President Obama with a ceaseless barrage of attack ads.

Mitt Romney is assailing President Obama's character in a new ad that hits back at a controversial spot by a Democratic super PAC. "What does it say about a president's character when his campaign tries to use the tragedy of a woman's death for political gain?" the narrator asks in the Romney ad released today. "Doesn't America deserve better than a president who will say or do anything to stay in power?

David Koch, a billionaire bankrolling anti-Obama ads, is a Mitt Romney delegate to the Republican National Convention... Koch and his brother, Charles, are the major forces behind the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, which is currently funding a $27 million ad blitz against Obama.

The main super PAC helping President Obama is out with an emotional ad today slamming Mitt Romney's business record, featuring an ex-steelworker talking about his wife's death after the couple lost their health insurance.

Candidates may raise the unprecedented sums of political cash being funneled through Super PACs this year, and media strategists may decide how to spend them – but the people who actually wind up pocketing much of the money are America's television broadcasters. Since the Supreme Court voided limits on political donations in Citizens United, more money than ever is being devoted to negative TV ads. Industry analysts predict that upwards of $3 billion will be spent on political advertising this year – a surge of more than $500 million over 2008.

Citing a poll conducted by Global Strategy Group and Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group in the battleground states of Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida, Priorities USA claimed that more voters say Romney’s experience at Bain makes them less likely to vote for him, 37% to 27%. Claiming that its own anti-Bain ads are working, Priorities USA pointed out that in the 11 markets they’ve advertised in within those five states, Obama leads Romney by eight points (49% to 41%) compared with a three-point lead in those without the ads (46% to 43%).

...And that will all come on top of the barrage of negative ads from Republican groups. Despite the conventional wisdom that Obama would attack Romney to distract from the poor state of the economy, the Post finds that 100 percent of the ad spending from GOP-aligned groups Americans for Prosperity, the American Energy Alliance, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have been negative. 58 percent of Romney’s spending has been on negative ads, compared to only 44 percent of Obama’s. If anyone can win this election on the strength of a barrage of misleading negative ads, it won’t be Obama, it will be his opponent.