Much is being made of Karl Rove’s election night challenge of his network’s call to give Ohio to President Obama. Perhaps you can’t blame him.
After all, Rove had a lot invested that evening. A new study out by the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, as examined by NBC’s Michael Isikoff, finds that Rove’s super PAC, American Crossroads, had a mere 1% success rate on the $103 million it spent on attack ads this election cycle. That, Sunlight found, was among the lowest returns on investment of any of the spending groups enabled by the controversial Citizens United Supreme Court ruling.
Altogether, some $1.3 billion was spent by outside groups over the course of this election, most of which supported Republican candidates. Of the eight GOP Senate races American Crossroads backed, six were lost – to say nothing of Governor Mitt Romney’s failed bid.
It’s not just American Crossroads that had a bad night Tuesday. Today on NOW, we’ll look at the role that outside spending played in the election as a whole. Will the precedent of this election naturally blunt the future impact of Citizens United? Will there be a consensus that money could be better spent? And if so, how? See you at noon ET on msnbc.
PANEL
Eric Bates, Executive Editor, Rolling Stone
Fmr. Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA), NBC News Political Analyst (@govedrendell)
Joy Reid, Managing Editor, TheGrio.com/msnbc Contributor (@thereidreport)
David Corn, Washington Bureau Chief, Mother Jones (@davidcorndc) GUEST Sasha Isenberg, Author, “The Victory Lab” REPORTER Luke Russert, NBC News (@lukerussert)
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