The Money Party

They say money dominates politics.

And the common meme is it's Republicans that are buying elections.

Not so much.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that Democrats have been outspent by conservative outside groups, Politico reports that figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics "tell a different story."

"The money race totals come to $856 million for the Democratic committees and their aligned outside groups, compared to $677 for their Republican adversaries."

And to go hand in hand with that, we have this fantastic column from Rich Lowry at NRO:

Just when we’d been told the Chamber of Commerce had bought the election, along comes the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) to pour nearly $90 million into the campaign.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this makes the public-sector union the biggest spender of all the outside groups. The National Education Association and the Service Employees International Union rank among the top five. Collectively, these three unions representing millions of public workers — only the SEIU is majority private — are devoting an estimated $170 million to an election Democrats insist that they are losing because of the nefarious influence of outside money.

And here's the breakdown as provided by the Wall Street Journal:

For the mathematically challenged, that's $171.5 million spent by Democratic allies versus $140 million for Republican allies.

Just sayin'.