Polls in the battleground states that will decide the presidential election show a tight race. Notably, the Real Clear Politics average of state polls has President Obama up by one point in both Florida and Ohio.
Now consider this: In these two states alone, the campaigns and associated Super PACs have spent a combined total of $218 million on advertising.
Let me repeat that: $218 million. On ads.
How much is that? Well, Disney spent about $100 million on advertising for “The Avengers.”
All in all, nationwide, presidential-campaign advertising has topped $550 million this year — more than was spent on the McCain-Obama race through November in 2008.
And it’s not even September.
The Obama campaign has spent about $150 million on ads in Ohio and Florida, three quarters of which attack Romney directly. But an NBC News study found that, if you add in expenditures by pro-Romney outside groups, the spending pretty much evens out.
Now here’s the rub. On June 27, Obama was up 1.8 points in Florida. Yesterday, Aug. 27, he was up 1 point in Florida. On June 27, Obama was up 2.6 points in Ohio. Yesterday: 1.4 points.
I can think of two explanations for why this unprecedented level of spending has changed almost nothing.
Explanation No. 1: The opposing ads canceled each other out. If so, then Obama is in serious trouble. Mitt Romney now has a huge cash-in-hand advantage going into the fall, because Obama spent so much of his own campaign’s money in the summer while Romney stayed out of it and let the Super PACs advertise for him.
The Super PACs came into existence as a result of the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United. Obama criticized the decision so heatedly that he and his team spent most of 2011 waving off the idea of Democratic Super PACs — until they saw the money pouring into right-wing coffers.
If you read in-the-tank journalists on the subject, like Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, you’d think this was due to the extremely moral and deeply principled approach of the Obama campaign.
Nonsense. Throughout 2011, the word in the political world was that Obama’s people thought they could raise $1 billion on their own. That didn’t seem unreasonable, after they’d raised $750 million in 2008. If they could top $1 billion, why would they need the complication of Super PACs run by people they did not control?
In fact, the fear of that $1 billion juggernaut (“aimed like a heat-seeking missile at one guy,” as a rueful Republican senator told me by way of explaining why several promising GOP candidates opted out of the 2012 race) was part of the reason Karl Rove and others found it so easy to raise money for their Super PACs.
Well, Obama won’t raise anywhere near $1 billion. He’s likely to raise less this time than last. Big Democratic givers are shying away.
Mayer and others suggest that once Obama decided to bless Super PACs on his behalf in the spring, it was too late for them to get cracking.
Nonsense on stilts, again. It’s never too late. Obama supporters haven’t raised major Super PAC dollars because the donors aren’t there.
So now Romney has $65 million or so more than Obama to spend in the fall, and the pro-Romney SuperPACs have money in the bank as well. If the ads are working, and equal spending has kept the race at par, logic suggests that once Romney starts shelling out a lot more, Obama will be toast.
Explanation No. 2: The ads were meaningless. The spending has been a boon to TV channels and media consultants, but hasn’t done a thing to change anyone’s mind or alter anyone’s perception.
If so, then the hope on the right that Romney is going to prevail because of his superior financial position is a false hope. He’ll have to win on the merits — with his speech this week, in the debates and with a strong message of his own.
The first explanation may be closer to the cynical truth of how things work (Obama out-spent John McCain 4-to-1 on ads after the 2008 conventions, and look how well he did).
If Romney’s wise, though, he’ll run as though the second explanation is the right one. He’ll try to beat Obama on ideas, not on commercials.