Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have been playing up the impact of the outside money. Dem excuse: Outside groups killed us

With Election Day still a week away, Democrats are previewing what promises to be a main line of argument if Republicans make strong gains in Congress: Conservatives bought their way to power with a flood of spending by outside groups.

These post-mortems, made before the patient is actually dead, have slipped into public statements from top Democrats in recent days. And the argument is being made even more strongly in not-for-attribution comments to reporters from party operatives: A tough-but-manageable political climate turned much more lethal with the infusion of tens of millions of dollars from anonymous donors funding ads for right-leaning independent groups.


The denunciations of outside money by President Barack Obama and others began as a tool to rally the Democratic base before the Nov. 2 election. But in recent days it has morphed gradually into something else: A main talking point to explain—and fend off the recriminations over—what many Washington Democrats assume will be a brutal election night.

Vice President Joe Biden sounded the first notes of the coming it-was-the-money message last week in an interview with Bloomberg’s Al Hunt.

“We will keep control of the Senate for certain, and I believe we’ll keep control of the House,” Biden said before adding that he had been “amazed” at the cash pro-Republican third-party outfits are dropping in campaigns.

“I’ve never seen this before, so the only caveat I’d put in terms of the House is how much impact this $200 billion are going to mean,” he hedged.

Biden presumably meant “million,” but the slip of the tongue also reveals just how much Democrats want to play up the impact of the outside money, much of which is undisclosed.

On Saturday night, at a DCCC fundraiser with President Obama in Minnesota, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also outlined the coming narrative.

"Everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where — because they won't disclose it — is pouring in,” Pelosi said, offering a sunny retelling of recent political history.

She also noted that “when the public knows the choice, we think that we will win.”

But privately, top Democrats go even further to detail how exactly the money from groups such as American Crossroads, American Action Network and the Chamber of Commerce is impacting House races – offering the kind of assessment typically heard after Election Day.

“They’re widening the field, it’s just a stunning thing,” said a senior White House official, voicing what in political parlance is known as a prebuttal.

“These guys have been able to put down $500,000 or $1 million in a congressional district that wasn’t on radar screens and make the race competitive,” the official added. “In a congressional district, the dynamic can be affected by a million bucks in a way that a statewide race can’t.”

The Obama official cited the example of Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), who wasn’t thought to be in serious danger but is now facing a million-dollar-plus onslaught from a conservative group called the American Future Fund.

The White House will not only point to the third-party spending immediately after the election,, but will hold it up going forward to make the case for election reform post-Citizens United.

“I think it will help frame the debate for the next six months, next year,” said the official, adding: “You have not heard by any means the end of this one.”

Asked if the outside money could meant the difference between losing 35 seats and 60 seats, one of the Democrats’ most influential strategists said: “I don’t think that’s out of the realm of possibility.”

A senior House official pointedly refused to acknowledge the premise that Democrats could lose power – but framed how such an eventuality would be framed.

“Special interests bought the Congress they wanted,” said this House source. “Corporations bought [the new Republicans].”

Putting the matter of who will take control of the House aside, this congressional official said: “The reality is that were it not for outside money there would be a lot less uncertainty in House, gubernatorial and Senate races around the country.”

While the appearance of new conservative groups – in effect a shadow RNC – has unambiguously bolstered GOP fortunes this year, much of the Democrats’ message is about blurring the reality: It was issues that produced a political headwind for Democrats this year.

Democrats benefited from the same phenomenon in 2006, when they won power in Congress despite being outspent by the GOP in many key races.

What’s more, the financial advantage in 2010 is not clear-cut.

The DNC and the party’s two congressional committees have outraised their GOP counterparts and airing millions of dollar worth of TV ads. Further, it’s AFSCME, not one of the new conservative groups, that is spending the most money of any outside group this election, dropping $87.5 million to help Democrats. Other unions are also spending tens of millions on the campaign.

For all that, spending by outside groups—not affiliated with the candidates or parties—is only expected by experts to be about 10 percent of the total money spent.

Even so, this cash is also already sparking another post-election tradition that will take place concurrently this year with the money defense: intraparty finger-pointing on the losing side.

By hitting Republicans so hard for their reliance on third-party groups, Obama has discouraged his own party’s major donors from funding similar outfits.

“The person at the top has said the only money that is good money is from the grassroots,” complained one Hill Democratic official. “So no lobbyists, no special interests – it sounds good but you set yourself up for a structural disadvantage.”

White House officials say that for Obama to green-light outside money on the left following Citizens United would be hypocritical. After all, as his party’s nominee in 2008, well before the decision overturning much of McCain-Feingold, he ensured that no third-party liberal groups sprang up to take on John McCain.

Still, braced-for-losses Democrats are hoping that their focus on the new organizations on the right will have an impact after Election Day in explaining what happened – and ensuring it doesn’t take place again.

“No matter what the outcome is, this is a wake-up call,” said a House official of the conservative groups.