SALON

Tuesday, Jun 12, 2012 4:45 PM UTC

Brown lashes out at super PACs

The Ohio senator tells Salon he's fed up with conservative groups pumping money into his race

By

Topics: 2012 Elections, Ohio,

Brown lashes out at super PACsSherrod Brown (Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

Anyone unconvinced that the post-Citizens United campaign finance regime has fundamentally changed the game need look no further than Ohio, where millions from outside groups have eroded Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s once-formidable lead and turned the race into a possible pickup opportunity for Republicans.

The race, in the key battleground state, was always expected to be competitive and attract national interest, but big conservative money has poured in faster than anticipated. Back in March, Brown was up by 16 points over his relatively inexperienced Republican challenger Josh Mandel, the state’s 34-year-old treasurer. The latest poll, from Rasmussen Reports on May 29, shows Brown with a lead of just 5 points.

In the intervening months, a parade of deep-pocketed conservative groups have launched a sustained air campaign, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s dark money group Crossroads GPS. While the money is difficult to track because much of it doesn’t need to be reported to the FEC, Roll Call estimated in late May that $6.5 million had been spent by outside groups attacking Brown, with just $1.1 million from allies defending him. Brown’s campaign says that first number will surpass $7.5 million by the end of this week. Some of that erosion likely comes from Mandel’s increasing name recognition in the state as well, where Brown has been in office for decades and has statewide recognition.

Sitting down at a cafe this weekend at Netroots Nation in Providence, R.I., Brown sounded a bit frustrated. “The money concerns me,” he said. His communications director handed me a fact sheet titled “Sherrod Brown is the number one target of secretly funded special interest groups.” Clearly, this is on their minds. “When you’re outspokenly progressive … you expect this kind of money,” he said, before pausing to clarify: “I mean, I don’t know if I expected $7 million, but I expected a lot.”

Brown says the groups target him because they view him as a threat. He ticked off a list of battles he fought with big corporations, including his effort to break up the biggest banks, his authorship of healthcare reform’s public option, and his fights against outsourcing and trade deals. His state has also likely been targeted because it represents a good opportunity for Republicans to win another Senate seat, and because the money they spend against Brown can do double duty, hurting President Obama in the critical electoral state.

The 60 Plus Association, which bills itself as a conservative response to the AARP, is running a $1 million campaign in the state right now. The Chamber of Commerce has already spent about $3.8 million on the race, while Crossroads GPS, the 501(c)4 arm of the Rove empire that keeps its donors secret, has poured in about $800,000 to target Brown, plus an additional $2 million for the presidential race in Ohio. Tea Party group FreedomWorks and the pro-life National Right to Life have made smaller buys.

Brown has had his outside help as well. Majority PAC, a group run by allies of the Democratic Senate leadership, has spent almost $1 million, while the SEIU has dropped about $230,000. But the liberal groups can’t compete with the conservative money, which is outpacing them 6-to-1. Still, Brown’s campaign itself has a big fundraising lead over Mandel’s campaign.

“They’re clearly orchestrated and coordinated,” Brown said. “I can’t prove it, but I’m fairly certain,” he explained, pointing to the timing of the six outside groups that have dropped money in the race so far. “I don’t believe that they’ve ever overlapped with another. So Concerned Women of America will come in, then Pat Boone and the 60 Plus will come in, then the Chamber of Commerce, then Crossroads, then some other organization. I mean, they’re just one after another,” he said.

Asked if voters understood the situation and would give him a break, he said he wasn’t sure. “I think this assault, this $7 million in attack ads, has broadly annoyed and disgusted the electorate,” he said. “While they clearly don’t think that much about politics this early, it’s clearly had a corrosive impact on my standing. … In that way it’s hurt us.”

What’s it like to be the target of millions of dollars of nasty ads? “I don’t really watch the ads unless I’m watching an Indians game and they come on. I think it’s harder on somebody’s friends and family than it is on the candidate.”

Alex Seitz-Wald

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon's political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald. More Alex Seitz-Wald.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 34 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations