Democracy On Life Support: How Citizens United Won Florida For Mitt Romney

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What an unimaginable election season. With the birth of massive super PACS now flooding states, thanks to the conservative Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, it is hard to predict anything at all. We are in uncharted territory that is for sure.

The flood of money going into the states, the ads and mailings going to voters homes is definitely impacting elections. The reason why Mitt Romney won in Florida isn’t about substance, positions, messaging or anything like that. It is all about the money. The Wall Street Journal is tracking the Super PACs and not surprisingly, Romney’s Restoring Our Future Super PAC spent millions, including a $5,00,000 dollar media buy on January 24th to attack Gingrich. A grand total of well over $10 million in just attack ads against Newt by Romney’s Super PAC was spent in Florida alone.

Newt on the other hand only spent $358,000 attacking Romney in Florida according to the WSJ Super PAC project. All total, with the exception of New Hampshire, Romney has been relentless in his attacks on Newt. Florida though was a make or break moment for Mitt, I believe.

Romney’s Super PAC has spent $16,328,326 dollars just on Newt throughout the primaries thus far, with the majority of that sum being spent in Florida, again over $10,000,000 just in Florida. Newt, has literally only spent $3,529,190 in attack ads against Mitt Romney.

In South Carolina, Newt was a lot more aggressive. Newt’s Super PAC spent well over $3 million attacking Romney while Romney spent about the same attacking Newt. This was a level playing field and Newt was ultimately the clear winner.

My conclusion is money buys elections. If Newt can keep up with Romney’s fundraising, Newt will be the nominee. Romney is buying the primary, not winning it as we can see by the massive amount of money he had to spend in order to beat Newt in Florida.