Walmart moms not yet buying Romney or Obama

Expect to see record spending this year, which will largely come from very few donors. While the presidential campaigns are raising less money overall than in 2008, money spent by super PACs and secretive nonprofits, ostensibly independently, to influence elections is soaring. Groups across the political spectrum are making "independent expenditures" and "issue ads" that talk about candidates and issues without explicit "vote for" messages. This is the evolutionary effects of two critical changes in the campaign finance world. One is the demise of the presidential public funding program and the other is the formal legal sanctioning of unlimited and unrestricted spending directed at candidates. Since 1976, the presidential public financing system included matching funds for small contributions in primaries and equal grants for the two general election nominees. Beginning with George W. Bush rejecting public matching funds in the 2000 primary campaign (and the spending limits that went with them), that system was diminished incrementally until 2008 when Obama's rejection of general election funding spelled its final demise. The system was far from perfect, but it offered an equal base from which the two presidential candidates could conduct the eight or nine week sprint to the finish. And it would reduce the fundraising frenzy that now surrounds this presidential race.