After almost two years and a whole lot of money, was record campaign spending worth it?
Karl Rove is on the ropes.
The man who spent years on top of the conservative political world has fallen somewhat from grace after his Super PAC this year spent a colossal amount of money with limited results.
In fact, American Crossroads was the biggest loser among outside spending groups this year, shelling out more than $170 million dollars in races across the country, only 1.29% of which results in winning elections according to the Sunlight Foundation.
The second-biggest spender was the Super PAC dedicated to supporting Mitt Romney, which obviously had a 0% return on its money. It's worth noting that another branch of Rove's Crossroads organization called Crossroads GPS did a little bit better than American Crossroads, with a return of about 13%.
OutFront tonight is Politico reporter Ken Vogel, who has been covering the influence of money in politics this entire election cycle, and Charlie Spies, the founder of Restore our Future, the Super PAC that supported Mitt Romney.
On Twitter
This just further validates the possibility of Ashley Judd winning the Senate seat. Keep makin' it rain, Karl.
Our word of mouth > his SuperPAC money nearly every time. With the Indiana Senate seat, I know at least 3 or 4 people who weren't gonna vote & changed their minds within a half hour of talking to them. Consequently, each of those people convinced at least a couple people to vote, and so forth, and as Paul Harvey said "Now you know the rest of the story."
GOP really fought this election bout with one arm tied behind their back after they dismissed the Libertarian-Paulite wing of the party as "fringe." Young Americans for Liberty has an incredible grassroots organization & a lot of indignant enthusiasm, so you can't help but feel like they totally neglected to use one of their most critical resources.