GOP wasted money in 2012 race

In Political Campaigns, Do You Get What You Pay For?

By THOMAS B. EDSALL, NYT

Mark Hanna, the Republican Party political boss, famously declared at the outset of the McKinley-Bryan campaign of 1896: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember the second.”

In the wake of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act and the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, things are far more complicated than they were in Hanna’s day: now, curiously, some dollars are worth more than others, and the way money gets spent is more important than the amount.

Start with the last presidential election. Most of the nearly half billion dollars — $374 million out of a total of $486 million — doled out by “super PACs” and other independent expenditure committees during the general election was by Republican groups, more than triple the $112 million spent independently in support of President Obama.

Clearly, this cash advantage did not tip the scales. Stuart Stevens, chief strategist of Mitt Romney’s campaign, argues that the huge expenditures by Republican groups were essentially wasted.

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