Super PACs are Killing the GOP

Super PACs, the ‘great fallout’ from the Citizens United decision are going to be the downfall of the Republican Party in 2012.

Super PACs can’t look as if they’re in collusion with the campaigns. That would be illegal. So they don’t tell people to vote for a candidate. They tell them why they should vote against his opponent. An ad by a pro-Mitt Romney super PAC says Newt Gingrich has “more baggage than the airlines.” A pro-Rick Santorum super PAC ad accuses Romney of being “just like President Barack Obama” — The ultimate insult!

If it’s a super PAC ad, the candidate’s fingerprints will not — and can not — be on it. So the campaigns are essentially outsourcing negative ads.

“It’s clear the negative ads are what’s keeping [Romney] alive,” a Republican strategist told The New York Times. “It seems like Republican primary voters will not vote for Mitt Romney unless they are forced into it. And the way they’re forced into it is when he beats the other guy senseless.”

Negative ads may work because they make a voter dislike the candidate’s opponent. But the ads don’t make the voters like the candidate any more; rather they see him as the lesser of two evils. If anything the ads make the voters dislike the candidate for his dirty campaigning. That’s why as Mitt Romney tacks on additional delegates he also adds to his “unfavorable” ratings. That’s why voter turnout is down measurably from the 2008 Primaries. On Super Tuesday, Republican voter turnout was down in every state except Vermont and it was only up in that state because Democrats there can pull a Republican Primary ballot. With no race on the Democratic side, many Vermont Dems did just that.

The apathy of Super Tuesday mirrors the GOP voter apathy in almost every Primary before it. Voter turnout has been down in practically every state since the Primaries started.

In spite of all the money the PACs are spending, less people are voting. Because of all the negative advertising more people are being turned off on the Republican candidates and are staying away from the polls in droves.

So while the GOP PACs are battering each other, and while the GOP candidates “call in their chits” from their backers to spend in the mad frenzy we are now witnessing, the Obama PAC just sits and waits and collects more money to spend next fall.

In the end, Republicans may blow what, just a few months ago, looked like the perfect opportunity to complete the party’s 2010 triumph. Republicans had won the House; they were inches away from gaining Senate control and to many Obama looked like a sure loser.

Columnist George Will is already urging Republicans to shift their focus from the presidential contest to congressional races. If they can’t stop Obama from getting reelected, at least they can stop him from getting his program through Congress.

Now it’s all slipping away, and not just because the economy is improving. To a great extent, Republicans are doing this to themselves.

Super PACs are one answer to the question anguished Republicans will be asking in November: “How did we blow it?”