CBS Radio News a short time ago reported that the Bush-Cheney campaign will be spending $170 million during the primary season, despite their running unopposed in the primaries.
3. 2. 1. Duh.
They're NOT running unopposed, and they know it.
You can bet $170 million that the money will be spent slamming the Democratic front-runners in an effort to get a truly unelectable opponent to win the primary states.
Case in point: In the last legitimate California gubernatorial election year, there was a contentious Republican primary race between former LA mayor Richard Riordan and businessman Bill Simon. The airwaves were flooded with spots giving compelling (if ot totally true) evidence that Riordan would be terrible for California. These ran relentlessly up to the primary election, where Simon ultimately beat the former shoo-in Riordan. GOP voters bought the message of that commercial campaign simply thinking it was created by the Simon people.
Had they taken the time to read the fine print in the commercials, they would have seen that they were paid for by the Davis re-election committee - NOT Bill Simon. Davis, knowing that Riordan had a strong bipartisan following, threw the primary vote in the favor of the human speed bump Simon, practically assuring a November win.
Rove has GOT to be planning the same strategy for the primary/caucus states. The money will no doubt be funneled to "independent" politcal committees which will buy the time to continue the lie campaign against Dean or Clark or whoever the front-runner ends up being. GUAR-AN-TEED. Think we're blowing smoke? It's started already. (And don't believe the hype that it has "puzzled" the Bush strategists.)
Here's the numerical representation of what they'll be spending during the primaries:
$170,000,000.00
That can buy a lot of propaganda and spread a lot of lies.
