Koch Brothers & Rove Get Best Senate Money Can Buy
November 2014 - Estimates are that over a half billion dollars was spent on this campaign cycle,the largest parts of it being the so-called "dark" or unreported money spent by a few far right special interest groups. Yet (or because of it?) voter turnout was the lowest in an off-year election since 1942.
We're trying to get a better handle where the dollars were spent and how voter turnout may have affected the races. Most early analyses indicate that lower voter turnout probably cost Democrat Kay Hagan her North Carolina Senate seat.
It didn't help that the Democratic Senatorial candidates ran some of the poorest campaigns we've seen for a while, running away from winning Democratic issues instead of running on them.
Of course the massive amounts of money spent against them in television and radio advertisements undoubtedly confused some voters.
The conservatives seem to have learned that, if you can't win on the issues, then putting out distortion-filled ads and scare-mongering is your only hope.
For example: Was the far right ever really worried about Ebola in this country? Or were those ads aired just to scare some voters by distorting the issue?
We were particularly sorry to see one of our favorite pro-gun Democrats, Alaska's Mark Begich, narrowly get defeated by the far right money machine. We hope to see the Senator back in the public arena some time in the near future.
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