[EL] Super PACs and the Presidency

Wed Nov 7 07:09:16 PST 2012

"Any Super PAC seen lining its pockets rather than winning will be punished
by those dreaded markets the left tends to discount in other spheres."

I don't discount markets; I think markets are awesome. However, markets
with asymmetric information are not likely to be that efficient. The donors
to SuperPACs typically aren't sophisticated enough to know whether they are
being ripped off or not. And in every cycle, there seem to be new big
donors. So it's the equivalent of the restaurants near a big tourist hotel
(like in Woodley Park in DC) that don't have to be very good because their
customers are unlikely to return anyway, and they'll have new ones next
weekend. Consultants managed to rip off campaigns on media buys for years
and years before 2008; mega-donors like Adelson are easier marks.

Mark Schmitt
Senior Fellow, The Roosevelt Institute <http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/>
202/246-2350
gchat or Skype: schmitt.mark
twitter: mschmitt9

On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Steve Hoersting <hoersting at gmail.com> wrote:

> Good morning, Mark,
>
> I do agree that this election appears to have turned on voter mobilization
> efforts. The Democrats got exactly what they needed, where they needed it,
> and nothing more until the California returns came in. Very different from
> the 2008 general election. I think the degree of that will be understood in
> time.
>
> I've also surmised for years (without knowing quite how to confirm) that
> the Left is better at mobilization not because they have less money but
> because they have more persons, actual individuals, in their coalition to
> work maps, drive vans, and walk people to the polls -- and have had for a
> number of cycles now.
>
> Ground game funded by Super PACs and c4s is entirely new to the Right. And
> I have often thought that Republicans run ads because they don't know whom
> to finance to knock on doors. A study is needed there to see whether I am
> right about that as well. Republican party-oriented Victory programs are
> effective enough, and their micro-targeting data is good. But that model
> needs to be transmitted to outside groups motivated to use them, and to
> multiply exponentially the efforts of the party committee or the Republican
> party committee will be swamped.
>
> As to your second point, which is far less charitable, I've heard the
> stories over the years of mail shops putting all their receipts into
> salaries and overhead.
>
> But I believe the people running newly minted Super PACs and expanded c4s
> desperately want to win elections. This is true for ideological reasons: no
> one can say Steven Law didn't have what it took to have become a
> Wall-Street trader rather than a policy operative. But it is true for that
> base reason you ascribe to the Right's failure: Any Super PAC seen lining
> its pockets rather than winning will be punished by those dreaded markets
> the left tends to discount in other spheres.
>
> Again, I believe the Right runs the ad war because it doesn't know whom to
> finance for large scale ground game. Ads over the air are meant to *find*a coalition the Left has already found and can fund directly: people
> willing to get off the couch.  Who are the labor unions of the Right... or
> other such coalitions?  You can tell from this post that I don't know.
>
> But I would imagine that the Drew Ryuns and Matt Kibbes of the world are
> awaking this morning to figure it out. Let's let the Super PACs work awhile.
>
> ***
>
> I will add one more point: If, as some pundits were suggesting last night,
> markets, individual liberty and speech rights are an "aging, white-male
> thing" that Republicans should rethink -- because, after all, what "the
> folks" really want from their politicians is *stuff* -- we are all
> doomed, each of us. These principles are universal; the natural right of
> all men and women. I hope "diversity" doesn't come to equal statism, as I
> fear it might in the near term.
>
> Immigration does need rethinking. You saw that tension in speeches at the
> RNC last September -- and I saw, on Twitter, that Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick
> have begun with a new book.
>
> Steve
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 8:32 AM, Mark Schmitt <schmitt.mark at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I agree with that point, Steve, and always have.
>>
>> I would suggest, however, that one reason that the pro-Romney SuperPACs
>> and c(4)'s had less impact than some expected is that they seem to have put
>> all their money on broadcast media and to a lesser extent robocalls and
>> mail. What if some of the money had been put toward voter mobilization
>> efforts, targetted at key likely-Romney constituencies? Much of the
>> Democratic non-campaign spending takes this form.
>>
>> Why didn't that happen? My guess is that it's a combination of two
>> things: Rich donors want something they can see, like an ad that they
>> imagine will reveal that Kenyan socialist for what he is and destroy him,
>> rather than the amorphous idea that some people are out there getting
>> people to vote. And second, the operatives who created the SuperPACs and
>> c(4)'s are getting very, very rich off of media-buying commissions (richer
>> than they would get if they were actually working for the campaign, which
>> followed Obama's lead from 2008 in cracking down on commissions), and had
>> no interest in giving that up. Hence, as pointed out in another thread,
>> they were essentially burning off money on national ad buys in the last
>> week.
>>
>> If it weren't for greed, Citizens United and SpeechNow might have had
>> more impact.
>>
>> Mark Schmitt
>> Senior Fellow, The Roosevelt Institute<http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/>
>> 202/246-2350
>> gchat or Skype: schmitt.mark
>> twitter: mschmitt9
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 11:52 PM, Steve Hoersting <hoersting at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> To those who read this e-mail as predicting a Romney win, fair enough:
>>> If that is the way you read it, I was incorrect.
>>>
>>> But as to my main point (and one directed at an election law list) -- to
>>> not blame the Super PACs; they were never the President's problem -- I
>>> stand by it. There were always plenty of independent players and funds
>>> supporting Team Obama.
>>>
>>> I still believe the President ebbed in his reelection effort -- and no
>>> one doubts that today's race was close; too close for a well-liked
>>> incumbent -- because of an Obama agenda of what I called earlier today and
>>> continue to call "out-sized collectivism."
>>>
>>> Congratulations to the compliance team and strategists at Perkins Coie,
>>>
>>> Steve
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Steve Hoersting <hoersting at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Should, by this time tomorrow, President Obama fail to win re-election,
>>>> as now seems the case, many will point to a point made by *Politico*on August 20th of this year:
>>>>
>>>> Obama has himself to blame for what has, arguably, been the greatest
>>>> unforced error of his political career: his team's failure to adequately
>>>> form a strategy to deal with the avalanche of unregulated cash raining down
>>>> on him from GOP and Romney-allied Super PACs.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As one who started blogging against the FEC political-committee
>>>> regulations that would kill the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and six other
>>>> notable organizations on the Right and Left, and as one who worked on some
>>>> of the cases that would bring Americans the "Super PAC" -- and there were
>>>> four or five cases responsible, not just two -- it is tempting to want to
>>>> echo emphatically the *Politico* commentary: *You're darn right.*
>>>>
>>>> But the commentary doesn't hold. While I understand the role of freed
>>>> speech in this election, and the importance of increasingly alternative
>>>> committees speaking in an increasing alternative media, I recognize that
>>>> the real reason the President ebbs in his reelection effort is his
>>>> inability to cloak an out-sized collectivism in American garb.
>>>>
>>>> No one could pull that off. It is regrettable he tried,
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Stephen M. Hoersting
>>>>
>>>> http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79867.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Stephen M. Hoersting
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Stephen M. Hoersting
>
>
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