The New York Times: The Slush Funds of Iowa

Turning on the television in Iowa recently has meant getting hit by an unrelenting arctic blast of campaign ads stunning in volume and ferocity. Residents here say they have never seen anything like the constant negativity in decades of witnessing the quadrennial combat of the state presidential caucuses. The ads have transformed the Republican race for a simple reason: a new landscape of unlimited contributions to “independent” groups that was created by the Supreme Court.

To influence the small fraction of Iowa voters who will participate in Tuesday’s caucuses, the candidates and their supporters will have spent $12.5 million, an unprecedented amount. Only a third of that was spent by the candidates themselves; the rest comes from the “super PACs” that most of the candidates have allowed to be established. These political action committees are essentially septic tanks into which wealthy individuals and corporations can drop unlimited amounts of money, which is then processed into ads that are theoretically made independently of the candidates.

But the PACs are, in fact, a vital part of the campaigns’ strategy. They are run by intimates of each candidate, and whether they actually communicate in detail about the timing and content of particular ads is beside the point. In many cases, the PACs (most of which have not disclosed their donors) have clearly been assigned the dirty work of tearing down a candidate’s opponent, while the candidate gets to hide behind sunny, stirring ads ending with a statement of approval of the message.

The best example is Mitt Romney, whose campaign has spent more than $1 million on upbeat ads about his work in the private sector, his long marriage and his devotion to his church. One even featured his wife, Ann, talking about the importance of character in a candidate. Meanwhile, his PAC, Restore Our Future, has spent $2.85 million largely to attack other candidates, in particular Newt Gingrich. As Nicholas Confessore and Jim Rutenberg put it in The Times on Saturday, Mr. Romney “has effectively outsourced his negative advertising to a group that has raised millions of dollars from his donors to inundate his opponents with attacks.”

These ads, attacking Mr. Gingrich for his government lobbying and ethics violations, are the major reason why his support has tumbled since they were first broadcast a month ago. But they do not bear Mr. Romney’s fingerprints, and thus avoid the taint of voter disapproval that often accompanies negative ads. In one example, a Restore Our Future ad attacks both Mr. Gingrich and Rick Perry as “too liberal on immigration, too much baggage on ethics.” Mr. Romney’s name is never mentioned, and few viewers will realize that the ad’s producers are all close associates of his who worked on his campaign four years ago.

Mr. Gingrich has complained about the assault, but a few days ago his super PAC, Winning Our Future, began running ads saying the attack ads were “falsehoods.” It also has been urging viewers not to let “the liberal Republican establishment pick our candidate,” presumably a reference to Mr. Romney.

These primary ads, of course, are just a preview of what lies in store when the heavy armament is rolled out for the general election. President Obama already has a Super PAC, Priorities USA, that hopes to raise at least $100 million and can be expected to return the fire already coming from the Republican PACs. The president, too, will not be heard saying he approves of their messages.

As bad as the 2010 midterm elections were for the influence of big money, this year’s presidential campaign — the first since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision two years ago — is shaping up to be worse. There are no limits to the dollars involved, and no accountability for the candidates those dollars are buying.