GOP isn't people-powered, so it needs billionaires like Sheldon Adelson to prop it up.
Yesterday we looked at how Republicans have lost America and they
know it—why else do they work so hard to limit the franchise?
Here is another data point:
[O]peratives who run Republican-allied outside groups for months had been traveling to [Sheldon] Adelson’s office in his Venetian resort hotel and casino on the Vegas strip to plead for big checks early in the cycle.
Unlike Democrats and their big dependence on small-dollar donors, the GOP is a party built on a few ultra-rich donors. Adelson, the Kochs, the Ricketts. As some obnoxious-but-astute jerkwad
wrote back in June:
As of early June, 41 percent of the DCCC’s money came from contributions below $200, or $46 million. In comparison, the NRCC raised just $17 million from small-dollar donors, or 19 percent.
Senate Democrats have similarly outpaced their Republican counterparts, $80 million to $59 million. $30 million of Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee contributions came from small-dollar donors, compared to just $15 million for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The percentage of small-dollar donations for Democrats appears to be accelerating. For example, the DCCC raised $10.2 million in August, with more than half—$5.5 million—coming online. What's more, they got 270,000 online donors that month, or an average of $20 per donation.
Republicans don't have people backing them up. They have a billionaire's round table propping them up. They must stake out Adelson's casino joint begging for money, because without it, they can't keep up. So success! In late September, they got Adelson to pony up. They got $10 million for Karl Rove's Crossroads. Which of course is going to be money well spent, right?
It’s unclear how far a major influx of cash from Adelson would go at this late stage in the campaign, since much of the best stretch-run TV time has been purchased and that which remains is astronomically expensive.
And TV advertising
doesn't really do much anyway, so this may make Republicans feel better, but all it's doing is padding Karl Rove's bank account. Huzzah to that!