Karl Rove's super PAC is part of a coalition of conservative outside groups planning to spend $1 billion to elect Mitt Romney.
We always knew that the 2012 presidential election would be expensive. While President Obama’s super PAC has struggled to raise cash, a network of conservative outside groups, including those led by Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is planning to spend about $1 billion on the election in November, Politico reports:
That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections – twice what they had been expected to commit.
Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.
The total also includes Restore Our Future, the main super PAC supporting Romney. That group spent $50 million in the primaries and looks to spend $100 million more. Karl Rove’s Crossroads groups are aiming to spend $300 million. Beating Obama is partially responsible for coalescing these different groups:
“The intensity on the right is white-hot,” said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. “We just can’t leave anything in the locker room. And there is a greater willingness to cooperate and share information among outside groups on the center-right.”
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