Business Insider: 'Mitt Romney's October Surprise Is Going To Be Legendary'

[TroyD]

What should we make of this?

Mitt Romney's October Surprise Is Going To Be Legendary

Sep. 18, 2012

The thing about the set of leaked videos from a Romney fundraiser that nobody is talking about is this part: The video was taken at a $50,000 per plate fundraiser in Florida. You may not have noticed, but despite the blur there are a lot of plates in front of a lot of people.

This is what people are still not grasping about Romney: He's about to open up the money floodgates in a way that Obama can't match.

Romney was wildly successful during the primaries — not as a result of his charm and personality — but because he had a massive pile of money.

He still has a massive pile of money in his campaign coffers, and by all margins he's continuing to raise large amounts of money, as we've found through a look into the Center for Responsive Politics' database.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/mitt-romneys-october-surprise-is-going-to-be-legendary-2012-9#ixzz26yed26Sd

[Ebadlun]

1. Legendary - like a unicorn?

[theKed]

51. Unicorns arent legendary

they're in the bible, which is 100% factualish.

[Brigid]

56. Got a little news for you:

There is no mention of unicorns in the Bible.

[theKed]

65. Allow me

to support my ridiculous claim:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2039 %E2%80%9312;&version=KJV;

Turns out unicorns are in the bible five times. Who says it's not real??!

[Brigid]

72. I still don't see any unicorns.

I see oxen, horses, donkeys, ostriches, and assorted other critters, but no unicorns.

[TTUBatfan2008]

2. Difference between the primary and general is...

Obama also has a ton of cash. None of Romney's opponents in the primary could come close to competing with him in advertising. Eventually you reach the point of diminishing returns where the electorate simply tunes out all the advertising. The two campaigns will each spend around $1 billion by the time this is over.

[NHDEMFORLIFE]

68. Even beyond the money

There is a whale of a difference between running for the nomination and running in the general. The biggest is that, in running for the nomination, unless you are a political rock star you are pretty much a blank slate. Most times, you also are running against multiple candidates and the vote is going to be fragmented. It seems to me that, under those circumstances, spending oodles of money on TV ads can make a great difference.
In the general, the vast majority of likely voters have been paying enough attention to have a clue as to who you are and what you stand for. In Romney's case, he let the president's campaign define him through months of ad blitzes in battleground states.
One person's conclusion: If Romney is counting on making a tremendous comeback based on buying TV ads, he is in more trouble than I ever could've hoped for.

[bayareamike]

3. Maybe he switches out Ryan with Beowulf.

Seriously, this doesn't phase me. First off, this article is highly speculative. Sure, he has a lot of cash on hand but they actually need substance to pull off an October surprise (of which they have none). Second, despite his money people are seeing the real Romney and they don't like him, as demonstrated by the newly released polls showing the very negative reaction to his 47% remarks.

[dimbear]

13. Too funny!! Beowulf. Comedy gold.

[southernyankeebelle]

36. Well at least Beowulf lived up to the hype, unlike little Mitt Ryan. He is always bragging

how good he looks. Good god creepy.

[Cha]

67. I call him mini mitt. nt

[southernyankeebelle]

71. Hey I like that. LOL

[monmouth]

4. Why did I read his campaign is $11 million in debt?..

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/09/19/romney-campaign-debt/70000653/1?csp=34news#.UFpl_VGOwis

[Amonester]

23. Yep. He needs an awful lot more $50K plates, it seems.

At one point, when the loser's been identified, giving more $50K's becomes a doomed investment...

[d_r]

25. it is accounting trick

he could only spend so much by a certain date by law, so they reported a defiit and will "pay themselves back" on paper next quarter. they are not out of money.

[monmouth]

44. Thanks for the info..n/t

[liberal N proud]

28. Romney took out a $20 million campaign loan in August

And still in debt according to the article.

[d_r]

48. yes, but read the article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/19/mitt-romney-campaign-loan_n_1897310.html

<snip>

The loan may come as a surprise, given that Romney trounced President Barack Obama in fundraising from May through July, but nearly all of that money was earmarked for the general election, which only began at the end of the convention.

<snip>

A senior Romney campaign official told National Review Online, "We realized that we could collateralize this debt with $20 million of general-election funds that were already sitting in our bank account." In other words, the campaign was able to obtain the loan based on the money donated for the general election.

<snip>

Despite the $11 million still owed on the loan, the Romney campaign is flush with campaign cash in both its own coffers and at the Republican National Committee. The campaign and the RNC combined had $168.5 million in cash on hand at the end of August, according to a release from the campaign. That kind of money will easily pay off the primary debt and fund advertising, targeting and get-out-the-vote efforts in the remaining weeks of the general election

[railsback]

5. FOX is now losing the 25-54 demographic to MSNBC

After spending millions, the Right is still in a giant hole. People are just getting tired of the shit. No amount of money will help. No doubt they're trying to get some Monica Lewinskys into the Oval Office, now.

[bluestateguy]

6. 180m to 134m is not a substantial advantage

By the time you get to those numbers you are hitting the saturation point of diminishing return.

And "October Surprise" suggest just that, surprise. The Obama people have been ready for this for months.

[Doctor Jack]

17. That's what Bill Maher thinks

A few months ago, I saw an interview with him and he was asked if he was worried that Romney would be able to buy the election. Maher said by the time you get up to hundreds of millions of dollars, it doesn't really matter anymore. He said there is only so many times you can run the same ad before people tune out. And as you said, its not like Obama isn't raking it in too. At some point, you are going to have so much money being thrown around that it isn't going to make much of a difference anymore.

[progressivebydesign]

40. and you think that after the $$$ saturation from the nasty Romney PACS, it would do the opposite

Most people seem sick of the ads and calls already, and have made up their minds about who these people are. The ads are just starting to piss people off, especially the vile ones. That one by the shadowy Romney Pack featuring Netanyahu, in Florida, is probably going to backfire.. people will see it as meddling.

[librarylu]

7. Maybe....

....he's planning to buy the country.

[abumbyanyothername]

9. I don't think he'll get far at

50 cents a head.

[Generic Brad]

31. He has at least a dollar per head

Remember - 47% of us are not in his equation.

[librarylu]

46. He'll just evict us

We're just in the way of drilling and mining anyway.

[Brother Buzz]

61. Maybe it was discussed in the lost (maybe not so lost - wink, wink) two minutes of the secret video.

[madaboutharry]

8. I think that we are close to a time when the public

will have come to a clear conclusion about the type of person Romney is and the onslaught of advertising will do little to change that.

The American people are not complete idiots. They deserve some credit to figure this out.

[sendero]

10. Money..

... can only do so much. You can't BUY enough lipstick for the Romney pig.

[cr8tvlde]

14. +1,000

[abumbyanyothername]

15. rMoney is irrelevant to the rMoney campaign.

The theory of the campaign is "not Obama."

[gkhouston]

22. +1. No matter how much money they throw at him,

Romney is still like Door Number Four in Mystery Date.... the dud.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. If this is their strategy, it will go down in history as the dumbest strategy in

modern American politics. Conversely, Plouffe and Axelrod's strategy to spend big early, depend on huge late contributions, and define Romney in the industrial Midwest with a summer negative campaign will go down in history as the most brilliant response to Romney's cash advantage.

Romney can have $500 million on hand. He can't buy back the way he's been defined. he might look to the way he flooded Gingrich and Santorum in the primaries as some kind of parallel case, but he'd be desperately wrong: President Obama is not a Gingrich or a Santorum, in either resources or campaign skill. If that's their model, we'll see plenty of books titled "Miscalculation" and the like, doing post mordems on the campaign.

Far more likely is that Romney is actually going to run low on cash as the Big Money abandons him, and that this column is nothing more than a desperate attempt to keep the base from abandoning the election and those downticket races.

[Doctor Jack]

19. And Romney doesn't have 10x more money than Obama, like he did in the primaries

In some of these states, Romney was spending 3x, 5x, 10x what his opponents were spending (while barely winning). That isn't the situation that we find with Obama. Romney has more money on hand but more like 1.3x more. That isn't a very strong advantage, especially if people don't want to listen to what you have to say.

[fugop]

26. Plus a brazillion!

Seriously, I absolutely agree that he can't buy back the way he's been defined. I honestly think even a cash bomb at this point is just throwing money out the door. People have decided who Romney is. They're either holding their noses to vote or they're staying home. Unless something huge happens to shift the electorate, I just don't think ads are going to change things for him. The debates? Well, I don't expect Obama to implode which is the only thing I can see that might shake things up. SNL back? I don't think Obama is Sarah Palin, so again, I don't see that moving the needle against Obama.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not expecting a blowout. Mitt's big money might at least keep things closer than they could have been. But I just don't see his money bombing of the airwaves to change what's already happened. Obama already went through all the dirty warfare with McCain and Palin, and Americans still voted for him. I just don't see a bunch of ads being the straw that breaks the camel's back.

[coalition_unwilling]

55. Romney hasn't simply been 'defined'. He's been 'owned, p*wned and served' (to use

the kids' parlance). Marketers refer to it as 'branding'. Romney has been branded as an arrogant elitist prick\bully and no amount of money is going to be able to erase that brand.

I don't know a single person who publicly will say that they like Romney. Ab-so-fucking-lutely incredible the level of distaste he inspires among the masses.

[GeorgeGist]

12. In keeping with his legendary campaign,

SURPRISE

[SDjack]

16. We are still waiting for Stephen Colbert to strike with the fund

he has collected over the past 6 months. His biting wit is at least 100X the power of what we have seen from the GOP PACs. There could be a fireworks display, but I think the DEMs have the "nuclear bomb" ads.

[Iris]

18. National Review reported that the Romney campaign is $11 million in debt

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/327793/romney-campaign-borrowed-20-million-robert-costa#

I'm not sure how campaign funding actually works, so this may not be significant at all but still interesting.

[Doctor Jack]

20. Lets not forget, most candidates end the presidential election with a lot of money left over

Odds are both Obama and Romney have more money than they can even spend at this point. Obama and McCain were running ads constantly in 2008 and I believe both of them ended the election with a lot of unspent money. I just don't think it matters at this point how much money Romney has on hand.

[Marsala]

21. Romney's October Surprise - he'll promise to literally buy votes

"Vote for me and I'll give you $100!"

[MjolnirTime]

24. Meg Whitman thought the same thing.

[progressivebydesign]

41. and Steve Forbes, and Ross Perot, and Michael Huffington. n/t

[UrbScotty]

62. Dick DeVos too (nt)

[BeyondGeography]

27. He's running out of places to spend his money

Unless he wants to try to lose California by less than 15 points.

[AlinPA]

29. The GOP SuperPACs can do a lot of damage. $250M in each battleground state to fix machines,

pay off vote counters, buy up air time, newspapers, mailers, and door knockers/GOTV for Romney. Yes, that's coordinating with the campaign that is "not allowed", but the election will be over with before anything can be done about it. To say they are not coordinating even now is phony.

[CrispyQ]

30. "Romney was wildly successful during the primaries..."

This explains the "legendary" descriptive.

[BlueToTheBone]

32. I hope it's one hell of a lot because

his campaign is $11million in debt and he borrowed $20million to cover day to day. Let them spend every f*cking penny they have! It will stimulate the economy.

[Cobalt Violet]

33. Since everything they do backfires on them I suspect this will too.

That 's what I make of it anyway.

[Indpndnt]

34. Oh, yeah. They'll use that mountain of money to get out Willard's message.

Because his messages have worked out so well to date.

[Politicub]

35. President Obama is way ahead in the PR dept. The GOP won't be able

to win the public relations war with money alone.

Only a fool would discount the brilliant campaign that President Obama is running.

[Zoeisright]

37. Uh huh.

Desperate grasping by a desperate rag. Business insider? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH!!

[kestrel91316]

38. It won't help. WE own the intertubes. Social media is squarely behind Obama.

[NYC Liberal]

39. Won't matter. He ALREADY has a ton of money and how is that working out for him?

Perhaps for a competent candidate it would help. Romney has shown that his incompetence and big mouth erase any advantage his money might give him.

[sofa king]

42. I wonder if he's going to pull a "Producers"?

Surprise everyone by spending little while the PACs do the heavy lifting, lose, and keep the giant wad of money.

Can he do that?

[WeekendWarrior]

43. All the money in the world can't save this guy. nt

[brooklynite]

45. Actually, there's AREN'T a lot a seats...

I've had lunch with the Vice President at a table like this. It's a square table arrangement with 5-6 people on each side. 20-25 people max, so about $1 million total. Not an insignificant amount, but if you read Peggy Noonan's op-ed yesterday, stockpiling money for advertising isn't going to be his panacea.

[mojo2012]

47. Big Donors are rethinking

Romney probably has alot of money left in the Super Pacs for future ads. But I think the big donors are rethinking about whether pouring more money into Romney is worth it. They may direct their money now into the House and Senate races. The Romney campaign doesn't appear to have much money in it. I don't think much money comes from the average Republican voter (since most are in the 47%!)
From what I've seen in recent posts and articles, the money isn't being spent very strategically when it comes to running the ads in swing states.
Maybe the October surprise is that his polls will go down to 25% and Obama 75%

[TeamPooka]

49. He can spend the millions but he has no message so it will only be attack ads nt

[Xyzse]

50. See, the thing with Legendary things...

They can be Legendary Good or Bad.

With that amount of money, it is very easy to go either way.
Especially if one is tone deaf.

[coalition_unwilling]

52. This publication constantly shills for the 1%. Just yesterday they ran a piece with the phrase

that Obama was just emerging from a 'dead heat' . . . at the same time that most major polls were showing him with a 8-10% point advantage over Shit Mitt.

I would take anything this propaganda organ for the 1% says with several grains of salt.

[WI_DEM]

53. Except Obama is not cash poor like the Grinch or Santorum were...

he will have enough money to blunt the big money. Maybe not as much but enough to fight back.

[Raven]

54. It's going to be a legendary waste of money. I

don't think people are paying attention any more, except the folks who are already going to vote for him. Actually, these ads annoy people. Typical Romney...money takes vare of everything in his life.

[Coyotl]

60. indeed. Never before will there ever have been so much money thrown away in futility.

That's the kind of legend that befits the candidate and his campaign so far.

The way Romney's campaign is going, October will be too late to change anything because the voters are already making up their minds thanks mostly to Romney turning them off, with help from Ryan and Akin, et.al.

Recently, Romney has made sure those two fools are not outdoing him on the screw-up scale

[NoPasaran]

57. "Romney was wildly successful during the primaries"???

That's some pretty shameless rewriting of recent history right there. Despite Romney being the choice of the GOP establishment---despite it being "his turn"---Romney had a long tough slog through the primaries as a long list of rightwing clowns, miscreants, and poltroons had their turns as frontrunner du jour with Romney always a disliked Anointed One whose halo just never really shown for Republican voters.

[gkhouston]

58. "Legendary" in the sense that we shouldn't watch TV or surf the web with a full bladder. nt

Last edited Thu Sep 20, 2012, 08:24 PM - Edit history (1)

[Blue Idaho]

59. Whistling past the grave yard...

This smells like the worst kind of desperation mixed with magical thinking to me. Hoping some clever little dirty trick will turn a campaign on its ear is just the sort thing a lightweight like RMONEY and his ignorant followers would pray for instead of doing the footwork necessary to convince voters you belong in the oval office.

Time and time again RMONEY has failed the Commander in Chief test and proven he is not Presidential material.

PS - money will not decide this presidential race. Both sides are awash in cash and the percent of truly undecided voters can be counted on one hand.

[Avalux]

63. Money can't buy truth or decency and Romney has neither of those.

He can waste his money til the cows come home but I don't think it will matter; the damage is done.

[quaker bill]

64. NYT indicates that he does not have the money

and that his fundraising figures were bulked up with restricted $ that went to the RNC and congressional campaign committee. Most of his donors have already maxed out.

[Arkana]

66. You can polish a turd to a glossy sheen, but it's still a turd.

Romney's hurled millions at the airwaves and his polls are going down, not up.

[ailsagirl]

69. Legendary? Really??

[magical thyme]

70. I don't know. I think the September surprises have been pretty legendary...

Inserts himself into Libya tragedy, smirking over the graves of our dead.

Writes off 47% of the country as deadbeats.

Paints himself brown for Univision interview, in pander of the century.

Loses Campaign Co-Chair Tim Pawlenty 45 days before the election.

Lies about his funding exposed -- he's got far less money than his campaign claimed.

Writes off New Mexico.

What's left? Writes off Utah and Idaho? Lose the other Campaign Co-Chair? Warpaint in front of the Native Americans? Write off the other 53% of the country?

[HooptieWagon]

73. 1% didn't amass wealth by pissing their money away.

I think a lot of the pledges became unpledged when they saw Willard was a poor candidate and was running the most incompetent campaign ever.

[smorkingapple]

74. *Yawn* Law of diminishing returns anyone?

What else are they gonna throw at Obama that hasn't already been tried over the past 5 years by Hillary, McCain, and now Romney? Short of the Whitey tape, there's nothing an avalanche of negative ads can do to turn this against Obama. Plus Romney himself admitted the President is too popular for these attacks to work, they might actually turn people against him.

This is a nothingburger. Unless he dominates first debate, he's done.