Gavin Aronsen

A quick look at the week that was in the world of political dark money...

How Citizens United went down: The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin has a riveting behind-the-scenes story of how the Roberts court decided the landmark Citizens United case. Toobin contends that Chief Justice John Roberts orchestrated a sweeping reinterpretation of decades of campaign-finance laws while keeping his fingerprints off the final opinion (written by Justice Anthony Kennedy). SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein counters Toobin with a less conspiratorial take on how the conservative wing of the court made its decision. Plus: A look at four cases working their way to the Supreme Court that could speed—or stem—the flow of unlimited election cash.

New ad blitzes launch: Mother Jones' Andy Kroll reports on the latest ad campaign from Karl Rove's dark-money outfit Crossroads GPS: A 10-state broadside against President Obama. 501(c)(4) groups like Crossroads GPS are prohibited from devoting the majority of their resources to politicking (although there's a chance that may change soon). This ad carefully sidesteps the issue by not explicitly telling viewers to not vote for Obama or to vote for Romney. 

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign unleashed a $25 million ad campaign of its own; it's suspiciously similar to another ad campaign released this week by the pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA Action, which is prohibited by law from coordinating with the Obama campaign.

Attack ads work: According to a new survey by two Arizona State professors, the more negative ads voters watch, the more harshly they judge the candidate being attacked. That could explain why, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, 70 percent of ads this year have been negative, compared with 9 percent in 2008. However, the survey also found that some people are more resistant to negative ads: strong partisans, close campaign observers, conservatives, men, young people, and those with unsophisticated political views.

Super-PACs home in on state races: Politico reports that super-PACs focused on congressional races are dominating outside spending, especially in Republican primaries. For example, Club for Growth Action has poured more than $1 million into races in Texas and Nebraska. Its Nebraska ads, like this one, appear to be proving the Arizona State survey true:

21-year-old starts super-PAC: This month's sixth-top spending super-PAC is Liberty for All, a pro-Ron Paul super-PAC cofounded in March by John Ramsey, who has spent upwards of $500,000 of his inheritance on campaign ads for Thomas Massie, a Paul-endorsed candidate running for an open House seat in Kentucky. "We're the only freedom organization that is focused on winning elections, plural," Liberty for All's other founder tells MoJo's Tim Murphy.

Americans Elect folds: Last week, it was becoming clear that Americans Elect's effort to launch a third-party presidential bid through a series of online caucuses was in serious trouble. Today, having gained ballot access in 29 states but unable to nominate a candidate, AE acknowledged defeat. When asked if he planned to end his presidential bid now that AE is toast, the group's front runner, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer told Slate's Dave Weigel, "I'm digging deep for words, but all I'm coming up with is bullshit."

A plan of attack backfires: The New York Times reports that Character Matters, a new anti-Obama super-PAC, entertained a proposal to cast the president as a "metrosexual, black Abraham Lincoln" and tie him to his former pastor, the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The super-PAC is funded to the tune of $10 million by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, whose family owns the Chicago Cubs. Ricketts disavowed the ad, but that wasn't enough for Chicago mayor and former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. The Washington Post reports that Emanuel is "livid" and won't return phone calls from the Ricketts family. Muckety maps their influence:

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A quick look at the week that was in the world of political dark money...

Hoosier (super-PAC) daddy?: Tea party candidate Richard Mourdock unseated six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in this week's Republican primary in Indiana, thanks in no small part to super-PACs. As iWatch News' Michael Beckel reports, pro-Mourdock groups spent even more than his campaign. Overall, Sunlight Foundation notes, the contest saw "the biggest outside money dump of any congressional race thus far." At $2.2 million, the top outside spender was the antitax super-PAC Club for Growth Action, which ran anti-Lugar ads like this:

Also notable: A $25,000 donation to the pro-Lugar Hoosiers for Jobs from the Japanese-owned 7-Eleven convenience store chain may be the first disclosed gift to a super-PAC from a foreign-owned corporation.

Casting about for a candidate: Americans Elect, the dark-money 501(c)(4) group attempting to launch a third-party presidential bid through an online caucus, is still struggling to gain momentum. It has twice delayed its first caucus because no candidates have received enough support to qualify for it. Buddy Roemer, the leading contender for the AE nomination, told Mother Jones that he has major reservations about the group's lack of transparency but thinks it's "making a noble effort to improve the system."

Unaccountable accounting: Reuters turns an eye on the complex web of fly-by-night companies and double-dealing consultants that get much of outside spending groups' money but whose activities (and actual compensation) may be largely hidden in official disclosure reports. Rick Tyler, a political operative who advised the pro-Newt Gingrich super-PAC Winning Our Future, explains, "So you'll get a congressional campaign manager who on the surface you think is making $50,000-$60,000. The fact is he could be making hundreds of thousands of dollars—you have no idea because he's being paid separate from what you're seeing."

Obama super-PAC in trouble: MoJo's Andy Kroll runs down four reasons why the pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA Action can't keep up with its Republican competitors. One reason: While billionaire financier George Soros* just made a pair of $1 million donations to Democratic super-PACs, he remains reluctant to fund negative ads like the one below, made by Priorities USA Action. Another reason: Obama still has some work left to win over wealthy gay donors (even as his announcement that he now supports gay marriage brought in at least $1 million to his campaign).

The anti-super-PAC super-PACs: Roll Call's Eliza Newlin Carney takes a look at some of the tongue-in-cheek super-PACs formed to protest the post-Citizens United influx of big money into politics. One recent example: America's Super PAC For The Permanent Elimination of America's Super PACs, whose mission statement declares its intention to "call for a constitutional convention where an amendment will be proposed to ensure that corporations are never considered to be people." (So far, though, it's raised less than $200.) Meanwhile, a new poll finds that 52 percent of voters of all persuasions claim they'll only vote for candidates who pledge to reduce the influence of big money in politics.

Now we're talking real money: The Center for Responsive Politics finds that super-PAC expenditures in the 2012 election cycle are about to exceed $100 million any day now. The pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future has spent more ($44.5 million) than all outside groups combined had spent at this point in 2008. Take a look at CRP's chartified breakdown of all the spending:

Full disclosure: The Soros-chaired Open Society Foundations have supported Mother Jones' reporting on dark money.

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