outsourcing the attack

With the Iowa caucuses only days away, the Romney campaign has more or less successfully knee-capped Gingrich there, and they did it with a little help from their friends.

Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney super PAC, has spent more than double what Romney’s campaign itself has spent in the state. At the moment, an estimated 40% of Iowa TV political spots are attack ads nipping at Gingrich, and like most negative advertising, they have worked.

Per the intricacies of campaign finance law, Restore Our Future can’t coordinate directly with the Romney campaign, but there’s more than a few familiar faces making decisions for the group. Reports the NY Times:

The ads, which continue to blanket Iowa days before the caucuses here, were created and paid for by people with deep knowledge of the Romney campaign’s strategic thinking, close relationships with Mr. Romney’s most generous donors, and even research on what television viewers like and dislike most about Mr. Romney himself.

Yet neither Mr. Romney nor his staff has had to lift a finger or spend a dollar to make it happen… [Restore Our Future] operates independently of the Romney campaign but under the direction of former Romney aides who do not need to be told what the candidate needs.

They include Carl Forti, the political director of Mr. Romney’s 2008 campaign; Charles R. Spies, Mr. Romney’s former chief counsel; and Larry McCarthy, an alumnus of Mr. Romney’s media team who was known for producing some of the more compelling positive spots for Mr. Romney four years ago, but has nonetheless earned a reputation as one of the most fearsome political ad makers in the country — he produced the Willie Horton commercial that devastated Michael S. Dukakis’s presidential campaign in 1988.

Restore Our Future’s fund-raiser, Steve Roche, led the Romney campaign’s own finance team until this summer. He now spends his days meeting with the New York hedge fund managers, Utah businessmen and Boston financiers who have contributed almost $30 million to the group this year, according to people with knowledge of the group’s fund-raising. Among the donors are some conservatives who have a long history of backing attack-oriented outside groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which in 2004 went aggressively after Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee that year.

Thanks to the Citizens United ruling, there’s no limit to the amount of money Restore Our Future can spend on Romney’s behalf, which means it’ll be a perilous winter for Gingrich and his fellow anti-Romneys, and a rough ride ahead in the general, as these PACs start lobbing punches at Obama.

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