There’s a reason Donald Trump blathers on and on about hating Super PACs.
Between the Jeb-supporting Right to Rise USA and Rubio-backing Conservative Solutions PAC, about $29.1 million was spent trashing Trump, out of a total of $63 million so far, according to a March 18 ABC News report.
Since Bush and Rubio exited the race, the pace has picked up, with nearly $2.5 million a day spent hitting Trump since before Florida. That’s 65 percent of total GOP spending, again per the ABC report.
Now comes Great America PAC, which has spent $3.1 million on advertising for Trump, with ad buys through May 30. Television ad buys through April 4 total $1.5 million. Most of these ads attack Ted Cruz, using the typical mother-in-a-kitchen worried about her children (we’ve seen these way too many times).
Trump is behind in the polls in Wisconsin after taking a breather from the campaign trail, and he’s reversing himself (again) on an issue he’s campaigned on, because with Trump, nothing is non-negotiable, including Super PACs.
Honestly, I thank God for Citizens United v. FEC. Without Super PACs, there’s simply no way other candidates would be able to outspend Trump, who benefits from over a billion dollars of “earned media” by controlling the news cycle, according to a March 15 New York Times report.
Yet Trump complains that it’s not fair the other candidates outspend him using Super PAC money.
I call bulls**t.
Who can overcome a freaking 1.8 billion in free media, special treatment on news shows where other candidates have to show up and Trump can phone in from his jet, and half of the hosts at various news outlets breaking out the Astroglide when he shows up? Without the Super PACs, there’d be no such thing as #NeverTrump. It would be over. We’d be doomed.
And guess what? Should Trump become the GOP nominee, the earned media will flip over to Hillary, except to report Trump’s gaffes, flip-flops, missteps, profanity, and misogyny. The MSM will gladly report that.
Yes, thank God for Super PACs. They have been very effective, and in California, a new Super PAC led by Rob Stuzman has Trump in its crosshairs. Even if Trump gets the winner-take-all delegates from Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey–if he loses Wisconsin, he likely can’t get to 1,237. He’ll be short, and with the unbound delegates stacked against him, he’ll be very short.
It will come down to California, and you can bet your sweet patootie that Trump will use his Super PAC to attack Cruz all the way to the end. When he’s asked, he’ll give the same reason he gave when confronted about why he tried to condemn the widow’s home for a limo parking area, or declared Chapter 11 on his Atlantic City casino four times.
The same reason Bill Clinton messed with an intern in the Oval Office. Because he could.
It’s irrelevant whether those bankruptcies were good or bad for shareholders (bad), creditors (bad), Atlantic City (bad). They were good for Donald. And it’s irrelevant whether Super PACs are good or bad for politics. If it benefits Donald, he’ll use them. If he can make it seem like Cruz is “bought,” he’ll rail against them. He’ll do both in the same sentence if he can.
But it probably won’t help Trump. He’s only resorting to traditional advertising because his National Enquirer sewer scraping operation failed. He’s only resorting to a Super PAC because he wants to loan money to it and get paid back later instead of “self funding” as he claims (in fact, donors contribute 30 percent of his funding).
Trump says he hates Super PACs, but that’s not true. He only hates them when they hurt him. And they’ve hurt him. When it benefits him, Trump will go all-in for Super PACs. He’s a hypocrite on this just like every other issue in his campaign to be cultist-in-chief. Thank God we have Super PACs to stop him.
No comments:
Post a Comment