Dumping?

Sheldon Adelson
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We’ve got a series of reports from readers over the last few days about vast SuperPAC spends in states that just don’t look like they have very competitive races. Competitive is sort of in the eye of the beholder. If there’s even a theoretical chance of a win, and you’ve got money to go on the air, why not, I guess? And you don’t always know whether a spend in hopeless State A may actually be aimed at hitting a corner of neighboring State B where there’s still a competitive race.

With all that said though I’ve heard enough now to make me wonder whether a number of SuperPACs simply have more money left than they have any credible and useful way to spend. They seem to be just dumping money in places where it’s not going to have any real effect.

Remember, the incentives of running one of these big operations can be a little perverse. You can easily imagine a scenario. You’ve already raised the big bucks from your billionaire backers to bring on the anti-Kenyan millenium. There’s nothing else you can spend this money on. And it’s got to be spent by Tuesday afternoon. It’s got to go somewhere. And your friend that runs the media placement agency gets his cut where you run those anti-Obama ads in Ohio or Nashville.

For now, whether you’re in PA or New Mexico or New York City, watch the ads you’re seeing, keep an eye on the sponsoring organization and let us know with as many details as possible if the logic of the buy doesn’t really seem to compute.

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