Maybe this will make the Village stop yawning and start considering the extremely corrosive effect on democracy that secret groups buying members of Congress will create. Or not. Anyway, Karl Rove has decided that he needs a matched set. He's spent $56 million to buy the Senate, and has set a new fundraising goal in order to buy the House.

Now, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS are aiming to raise and spend $65M on the election -- an amount one source with knowledge of the organization's finances said was a conservative estimate of what they could raise by Election Day. So far, the two groups have focused largely on Senate races. Part of the added funding includes another $5M commitment to Senate campaigns. But with three weeks to go before Election Day, they will turn their attention toward taking over the House. They will join a coalition of Republican-friendly outside organizations in a $50M campaign to target House Democrats, to which the Crossroads groups will contribute $10M.

Here's what all that right-wing money represents in terms of real astroturfing: "60,052 ads since the beginning of August." That's $52.7 million in spending, in two and a half months.



(Click on image to see it full size.)

That bar on the left, that's how many ads the Chamber has aired--13,108. Right in the middle, that's Rove's Crossroads with 17,306 ads. Since the beginning of August.

The Chamber of Commerce spent at least $9.8 million to run fully 4,706 ads in just one week, meaning it eclipsed Americans for Prosperity (another apparent dropout from the big-money class). The Chamber reported even more spending ($10.7 million) to the FEC, but $949,886 of that spending appeared to be double-reported. Either way, the business lobby dropped a CEO's salary to influence our elections in just a few days. Makes you wonder what they're expecting in return. The other big-bucks story is more complicated. The innocent-sounding Commission for Hope, Growth and Prosperity — a 501(c)4* founded by GOP operative Scott Reed — has posted a startling 2,153 ads since late September. We don't know how much money they spent doing it, because Reed's group has yet to report a cent of spending to the FEC (a fact that led the DCCC to file a complaint last week; good luck with that). Still, we know who's feeding Reed's tongue-twisting money machine. From the horse's mouth: Where's the dough coming from? "The big three stepping into the batter's box are the financial services industry, the energy industry, and the health insurance industry," Reed said.

It's a wonder there's even any space left on airwaves to shove these ads in. But for the argument from the Village and the GOP that it doesn't matter to voters, there's this:

BLOOMBERG NATIONAL POLL: Would it make “you more likely or less likely to support a particular candidate .... [if that] Campaign was aided by advertising paid for by anonymous business groups”? More likely: 9% ... Less Likely: 47% ... Would Not Matter: 41% ... Not Sure: 3%.

That's why this story isn't going to go away.