Money won’t save Mitt Romney

With Real Clear Politics, Sean Trende makes a well-argued scenario for why Mitt Romney remains positioned to win in November, despite the last three weeks of bad news, and his long-standing deficit practically in most polls. Like a lot associated with analysts, Trend gives a good quantity of weight to the coming dollars disparity between Romney and Leader Obama: “Romney and his allies will likely outspend the president heavily within the next two months. ” Yes, both sides will spend to the issue of diminishing marginal returns. But the next month is when voters would be the most tuned in to the election, and a flood associated with ads — positive and bad — could move the dial in Romney’s direction, or a minimum of, improve his favorability with everyone. But there are a few things to note when considering Romney’s potential advertising advantage. First, campaign ad effects decay quickly — in the paper analyzing the 2000 election, political scientists at UCLA found rapid turnover for many of us advertisements. “Even when the powerful effect of ads on candidate preference is large, 50 to 75 percent on the effect dissipates within the first week and just about all is gone by the end on the second week. ” The effects associated with an ad barrage in early October could disappear because of the end of the month. Romney’s best bet would be to coordinate an assault in the ultimate two weeks of the plan; in a 2008 post, political scientist John Sides notes that, in 2000, voters in swing states were more than twice as likely to view a pro-Bush ad as a pro-Gore advertising. Did it matter? Number crunchers estimate that it cost Al Gore up to 4 points among undecided voters. Can Romney build that style of advantage over Obama? I question it. As it stands, Romney is lacking in an overwhelming cash advantage. The new York Times notes the degree to which Team Romney can be hampered by limited funds: “Much on the more than $300 million the campaign reported raising come july 1st is earmarked for the Republican Nation's Committee, state Republican organizations in addition to Congressional races. ” Super PACs is likely to make up the difference, but thus far, they’ve been focused on unproductive negative ads — the president is incredibly well-known to the majority of Americans and attacks won’t do much to advance opinions. Again, none of this is to say that Romney can’t reversal back. As Trende notes, there’s a reasonable chance that the race will tighten and Romney is likely to make gains in likely voter polls. But money isn’t a magic bullet; ads require particular circumstances to be effective. They require a strategy grounded in flooding the airwaves within the very last days of the campaign, an overwhelming cash edge, and opinions of the opponent to not be locked in. At best Romney has only the initial of those — so that money is unlikely to conserve him.