The most expensive election in history

[MindMover]

My colleagues Maggie Haberman and Alex Burns have a series of items on their blog today that give you a sense of the staggering amount of money that is being spent on the 2012 elections – by some estimates, spending will ultimately amount to anywhere from $6 to $10 billion at the end of all this.

The Burns-Haberman blog broke the news this morning that American Crossroads, the pro-Republican super PAC, and Crossroads GPS , its nonprofit affiliate, will announce $100 million raised for both so far through the 2012 cycle.

Here’s what else is in the news today:

•Mitt Romney raised a total of $12.6 million in March; in the last 12 months, the campaign has raised $87 million in primary funds.

•Paul raised $2.6 million in March; it raised nearly $10.4 million in the first fundraising quarter of 2012.

•The Susan B. Anthony List, which supports candidates who oppose abortion, announced that it would spend between $10 million and $12 million in this election cycle.

•The Obama campaign announced Monday that it had raised $53 million in March; its cash on hand figure is at just over $104 million.

•According to a running tab kept by OpenSecrets, spending by super PACs, parties, corporations, unions, individual people and other groups is at $109.1 million as of today.

All of it points to a wild year that will make this the most expensive election cycle in American history.

There are a few other takeaways here as well in this post-Citizens United world. One is that super PACs are on a trajectory to outpace the party committees as a political force in elections. The other is that an avalanche of money is being poured into elections at every level at a time when cynicism about politics is at dangerously high levels.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/charlie-mahtesian/2012/04/the-most-expensive-election-in-history-121199.html

[wandy]

1. Could this be the republican plan to fix the economy? n/t

[bemildred]

2. The 2000 selection was the most expensive in History.

Based on it's consequences, and we are far from done.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. My guess is that's more than the rest of the world spends combined

For instance, in Great Britain, the major parties spent about £40 million in 2005, and £30 million in 2010. Converting to dollars, and scaling up for the size of population, that's about $240-320 million. So the US may spend about 20 times more per elector. Some other democracies may spend more than Britain, but not that much, I think.

That, of course, is what the First Amendment gets you - everyone must be allowed to spend as much as they like on TV adverts.