National Jorunal:

But a funny thing happened on the way to the polls. Yes, Democrats were swept from power, and Reid from his post as leader. Yet few observers would place the blame on a lack of money. Instead, most would point to a tough political environment, a hostile Senate map, and—more than anything else—an unpopular president, as the factors that dragged down Democrats nationwide. Although Koch-linked organizations targeted key Senate races with negative ads in the spring, that effort was far in the rearview mirror by Nov. 4. Come summer and fall, Democrats had found the funds to answer. As Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told me a few days before the election, "It's clear that the early spending blitz by the Koch brothers was a giant waste of money."

In fact, although the midterm elections are believed to have set a new record, with nearly $4 billion spent on hundreds of thousands of mailers and about 1 million TV ads, political strategists on both sides of the aisle identify few, if any, major races where money was the biggest determining factor. The Democratic hype that the Kochs were buying the Senate proved overblown; so did the GOP's own fear campaign about liberal billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer purchasing the upper chamber.

In the end, the two parties appear to have begged, borrowed, and fundraised their way to, if not parity, at least a financial draw. Each side had more than enough money to get its message out in the most important races; it just wasn't enough for Democrats, in the face of their other obstacles, to win. "I don't know, looking at the map, if you can point to any one race and say someone won or lost because of money," says Brian Walsh, a Republican strategist who was communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2012.


There is too much money in politics. It's corrosive because it's tied up with access. But once a candidate has enough, having more doesn't matter as far as the election is concerned.

We joke and scream about the grifters taking advantage of the poor rubes out there. They are probably grifting the Kochs, too...

Cheers,
Scott.