He Burned Thru $9 Mil, But Rich GOPer Couldn’t Start a FireFor the last few months Paul has tracked the partisan profligacy of Bob Perry, the millionaire Texas Republican behind 2004’s massively successful “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” attack.
In the 2006 midterms Perry spent about $9 million on robo calls, mailers, and TV and radio ads attacking 20 Democratic House and Senate candidates. Highlights included Montana’s gay-baiting TV ad “Brokebank Democrats,” and his impish habit of putting the home phone telephone numbers of Democratic challengers in his ads.
Perry even took the trouble to funnel his meddling millions through three separate, generically-named “527” groups. But none of his sleight-of-hand amounted to much of anything this time around: In 14 of the 20 races, his GOP candidate lost. Four of his candidates won; they’re still puzzling over the ballots in two.
For about $2 million per win, Perry annoyed the hell out of hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of Americans with prerecorded mudslinging phone calls, angry mailers and the like.
If, as Al Pacino’s character in the movie “City Hall” observed, a man’s stature is measured not by the number of his friends but by the number of his enemies, I’d say Mr. Perry is a legend in his own time, wouldn’t you?
