Liberals Steer Outside Money to Grass-Roots Organizing
Nicholas Confessore, New York Times, May 8, 2012
After months on the sidelines, major liberal donors including the financier George Soros are preparing to inject up to $100 million into independent groups to aid Democrats chances this fall. But instead of going head to head with the conservative super PACs and outside groups that have flooded the presidential and Congressional campaigns with negative advertising, the donors are focusing on grass-roots organizing, voter registration and Democratic turnout.
The departure from the conservatives approach, which helped Republicans wrest control of the House in 2010, partly reflects liberal donors objections to the Supreme Courts Citizens United decision, which paved the way for super PACs and unbridled campaign spending.
But in interviews, donors and strategists involved in the effort said they also did not believe they could match advertising spending by leading conservative groups like American Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity, and instead wanted to exploit what they see as the Democrats advantage in grass-roots organizing.
Super PACs are critically important, said Rob Stein, the founder of the Democracy Alliance, a group of liberal donors who will convene near Miami this week to discuss where to steer their money this year. But the liberal groups, he said, believe that local efforts and outreach through social media can have an enormous impact in battleground states in 2012.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/us/politics/liberals-putting-super-pac-money-into-grass-roots.html
NS2012
(74 posts)Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Super PACs are going to saturate the market with so many negative ads that, at a certain point, Americans are going to tune them out. They always do. Plus, negative attack ads just don't work as well on incumbent presidents because most Americans have formulated an opinion on Barack Obama - which wasn't the case in '08.
Super PACs don't do anything to help voter turn out, register voters, get campaign offices open in swing states and that's where Romney, IMO, will struggle. He's got zero offices open in Ohio already and Obama has 18. Romney won't have near the operation that Obama has. So, while the Super PACs will spend millions of dollars, it will be the grassroots that once again wins this for Obama in November.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)not who has the most money.