A Texas super PAC has once again upped its bet on Congressman Joe Walsh, R-North Barrington, and now looks like it may well hit the $2 million mark on his behalf in the northwest suburban 8th District.
As of late Thursday, according to the Sunlight Foundation, the Now or Never PAC has reported spending $1.75 million here, mostly on TV ads promoting Mr. Walsh or zapping his Democratic foe, Tammy Duckworth.
The “independent” expenditures are up almost a half a million dollars just from earlier this week, with some tens of thousands of other spending by the group not yet reflected in Sunlight’s database.
* The complete totals from the Sunlight Foundation show that outside spending for Walsh and against Duckworth rack up to an astonishing $2.18 million - dwarfing the tiny amount of money spent on Duckworth’s behalf. The numbers…
WALSH, JOE (R) NOW OR NEVER PAC Support $917,320.00
DUCKWORTH, L. TAMMY (D) NOW OR NEVER PAC Oppose $829,148.00
WALSH, JOE (R) FREEDOMWORKS FOR AMERICA Support $181,215.44
DUCKWORTH, L. TAMMY (D) NEW PROSPERITY FOUNDATION; THE Oppose $171,993.49
DUCKWORTH, L. TAMMY (D) FREEDOMWORKS FOR AMERICA Oppose $83,532.15
WALSH, JOE (R) CREDO SUPERPAC Oppose $26,586.89
KRISHNAMOORTHI, S. RAJA (D) SUBURBAN VOTERS FOR CHOICE Support $25,215.00
WALSH, JOE (R) LUNCH PAIL REPUBLICANS INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURE ONLY COMMITTEE Support $6,618.75
DUCKWORTH, L. TAMMY (D) LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS ACTION FUND Support $70.52
WALSH, JOE (R) CLUB FOR GROWTH PAC Support $61.66
WALSH, JOE (R) LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS ACTION FUND Oppose $52.87
WALSH, JOE (R) ILLINOIS TENTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT DEMOCRATS Oppose $6.39
* Duckworth’s latest [This may actually be an older ad that just popped up again on YouTube] TV ad…
Duckworth has raised a lot of money so far, so she can fight back. But this is obviously a ton of outside cash.
*** UPDATE *** I took a quick look at some more outside spending and here’s what I found…
* Outside spending for 10th District Democrat Brad Schneider is just shy of $69,000, according to the Sunlight Foundation. By comparison, outside independent expenditures designed to help Republican incumbent Bob Dold is over $1.2 million.
* Over in the 11th CD, total independent expenditures topped $1.7 million. Of that, almost $1.6 million has been spent either attacking Democrat Bill Foster or supporting Republican incumbent Judy Biggert.
* It’s a bit more weighted toward the Democrats in the 17th CD, where over $1.2 million has been spent to help Republican Bobby Schilling, and over $1.9 million has been spent helping Democrat Cheri Bustos.
Still “lost” on this race and how its going to shake out.
Will Walsh pull this out, giving more credibility to his dismantling win over Bean?
Will Duckworth give credence to the conventional wisdom that Walsh’s “Crazy” has run its course?
Walsh won last time with grass-roots, a motivated electorate, and a “lazy” “washington” opponent strategy to run against.
Walsh does not have those luxuries, but Walsh NOW has the luxury of CASH (PAC monies at a mamoth rate, to be accurate)
Too close for me to say, today … Tammy is not looking as good as she was the beginning of the summer with the deck she is play with, and against, today.
I wonder what this Texas Now or Never crew is all about.
From the google, they only appear to have been interested in two races: Duckworth vs. Walsh, plus the Missouri GOP Senate primary, where they supported Steelman and opposed Brunner (Akin won).
The kind of spending being reported today is obscene and is the begining of the end of our democracy as we have known it. The average citizen and voter have little means to combat this type of buying of our elected officials.Granted we still have the power of the vote but still the distortions,half or fractional truths,and brain washing that is occuring due to these ridiculous sums of money by a handful of gazillionaires is not what I would call a true democratic process.
Just FYI, that Duckworth Ad is not new, it is the same exact ad she ran against Raja in the primary.
If you need proof, just look at the last segment where it shows that Duckworth is endorsed by the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald. Both those endorsement are from the primary over Raja, as the Herald and Trib have not come out with endorsement yet for the general.
How many times will Duckworth run and lose? For how many districts will Oberworth/Duckweis run? If she loses this time, will she fade into Bolivia? Tune in in 30 days, same Duck time, same Duck channel!
-she’s using the term bipartisan more in her ads, which she didn’t at all in the spring and summer and the ed boards that she’s doing which suggests a)the obama first message isn’t doing it alone for her b)obama’s record is also not enough for her c)she’s concerned about the race.
A lot of the senate races are getting harder for the gop and that field is narrowing a lot more for republicans and so we could see some of that money shift to Illinois.
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- hisgirlfriday - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 12:41 pm:
Love this Tammy ad a thousand times more than the spot you had up yesterday.
Here’s hoping they put more money behind this one than the one they had yesterday.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 12:49 pm:
Still “lost” on this race and how its going to shake out.
Will Walsh pull this out, giving more credibility to his dismantling win over Bean?
Will Duckworth give credence to the conventional wisdom that Walsh’s “Crazy” has run its course?
Walsh won last time with grass-roots, a motivated electorate, and a “lazy” “washington” opponent strategy to run against.
Walsh does not have those luxuries, but Walsh NOW has the luxury of CASH (PAC monies at a mamoth rate, to be accurate)
Too close for me to say, today … Tammy is not looking as good as she was the beginning of the summer with the deck she is play with, and against, today.
Going to be a good watch, for sure.
- mokenavince - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 12:52 pm:
Let’s hope PAC money dosen’t cost her this election. This source of money the Supreme
Court has allowed is nuts.
- wordslinger - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 12:57 pm:
I wonder what this Texas Now or Never crew is all about.
From the google, they only appear to have been interested in two races: Duckworth vs. Walsh, plus the Missouri GOP Senate primary, where they supported Steelman and opposed Brunner (Akin won).
Why the interest and what’s the connection?
- Will Caskey - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 1:09 pm:
Relevant to this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/the-incredibly-dumb-political-spending-of-2012
Quantity != quality in IE spending.
- walkinfool - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 1:10 pm:
Wonder what these hyper-rich folks are going to do, now that Romney announced his new tax plan during the debate: no net tax cuts for the wealthy.
From Texas, this could just be big oil money worrying about regulation.
- Eilean left - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 1:16 pm:
The kind of spending being reported today is obscene and is the begining of the end of our democracy as we have known it. The average citizen and voter have little means to combat this type of buying of our elected officials.Granted we still have the power of the vote but still the distortions,half or fractional truths,and brain washing that is occuring due to these ridiculous sums of money by a handful of gazillionaires is not what I would call a true democratic process.
- Mike Murray - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 1:25 pm:
Just FYI, that Duckworth Ad is not new, it is the same exact ad she ran against Raja in the primary.
If you need proof, just look at the last segment where it shows that Duckworth is endorsed by the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald. Both those endorsement are from the primary over Raja, as the Herald and Trib have not come out with endorsement yet for the general.
Still a good ad though…
- Todd - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 1:56 pm:
a district drawn for a democrat, the darling candidate of Rahm and Axelrod and Walsh despite his hoof and mouth problems is essentially tied.
what does that say about what a poor candidate she is?
- Rich Miller - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 2:00 pm:
===is essentially tied. ===
No it isn’t.
- Wumpus - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 2:17 pm:
How many times will Duckworth run and lose? For how many districts will Oberworth/Duckweis run? If she loses this time, will she fade into Bolivia? Tune in in 30 days, same Duck time, same Duck channel!
- hisgirlfriday - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 2:23 pm:
Isn’t this just Duckworth’s second run for Congress?
I would think you’d need to lose more than once before you start getting mentioned alongside Oberweis.
Seems more appropriate for a David Gill slam than Duckworth.
- Shore - Friday, Oct 5, 12 @ 2:38 pm:
-she’s using the term bipartisan more in her ads, which she didn’t at all in the spring and summer and the ed boards that she’s doing which suggests a)the obama first message isn’t doing it alone for her b)obama’s record is also not enough for her c)she’s concerned about the race.
A lot of the senate races are getting harder for the gop and that field is narrowing a lot more for republicans and so we could see some of that money shift to Illinois.