The Gingrich anti-Romney ad is also the newest test case of the effects of Citizens United. Why? Well pull up a seat, childrens, and Ol' Brer RedKing will tell y'all a tale about the Poor Elephant and the Rich Elephant.
The Poor Elephant's name was Newt, and he was in a fight something fierce for the Best Elephant in America contest, but he done spent all his money and people were all ignorin' him and looking at this real fancy elephant named Mitt. Well, a Rich Elephant by the name of
Sheldon was a friend of Newt's, and he come up with a plan. By the rules, he couldn't give Newt any more money. But he could give money to a group of people who would go out and sing "
We Love Newt, Newt is neat, Newt is the best elephant on the street!" and "
Mitt is ugly, Mitt has a cough, Mitt made his money laying people off"
all day long. So this group went on down to South Carolina and put a singer on every street corner. And that's how the Rich Elephant tried to buy a whole state for his good friend the Poor Elephant.
No shit. Sheldon Adelson, casino tycoon and friend of Gingrich, dropped a cool $5 million into a Gingrich-aligned SuperPAC, which then turned around and spent $3.4 million in ad buys in South Carolina. According to the numbers I heard, that means the average TV viewer in South Carolina will see their ad some 70 times
a day. For some comparison, Adelson put in $5 million in one go into the SuperPAC. Bachmann didn't raise that much money in an entire quarter. And Adelson's maximum personal contribution to the Gingrich campaign proper was $5,000. So he's only getting around it to the tune of 1000x his contribution limit.
Of course, the Gingrich camp would claim that it's only fighting fire with fire, as Romney-aligned SuperPACs were partly responsible for Gingrich's recent plummet in the polls with the ad blitz they ran in Iowa and New Hampshire. But as far as I'm aware in those instances, there wasn't a single contributor that was so dominant the way that Adelson is here. This is remarkable. In theory, somebody with the pockets of a Bill Gates (or a Rupert Murdoch) could single-handedly finance a candidate, support them with a monster SuperPAC, and in return expect that candidate to be a literal mouthpiece for their views.