Anti-Obama groups doubling up on GOP candidates

In 2007, Republican candidates spent $33 million on television ads, according to estimates of ad spending created by Kantar Media. Democrats spent $40 million in 2007.
Kantar’s data show that all the Republicans in this year’s race, and the groups supporting them, had spent a combined $8 million through Monday — about a quarter of GOP spending in 2007.
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Republican groups with an eye toward capturing the White House have already spent more than $18 million on ads attacking Obama — more than twice as much as the entire GOP field. In the 2004 election cycle, the biggest liberal interest groups attacking Bush didn’t start spending on ads until March of the election year.

Now, as president and CEO of the independent pro-Republican group American Crossroads (AC), [Steven Law] is preparing to fund seven or eight conservative organizations and create a broad front of support for Republican candidates in 2012. As a trial run, AC gave $3.7 million to the National Federation of Independent Business, $4 million to Americans for Tax Reform, and $1.5 million to the Republican State Leadership Committee in last year’s midterm election campaign. Republicans won a massive victory, and Mr. Law decided it was money well spent.
“Funding the right,” as AC calls it, isn’t the only political tactic Republicans are swiping from Democrats for use next year. Another is focusing on early voting in the weeks before Election Day, a tactic that helped Democrats capture both houses of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. AC tested an early-voting operation in a special House election in Nevada in September. Republican Mark Amodei won a majority of early voters and was elected handily.