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It's not that Mitt Romney's money is no good in the Republican primary, it's just that his money buys a lot less than everyone else's. It's like Mitt Romney's political donations come in another currency -- BerkShares, perhaps? -- and the exchange rate in the Republican primary isn't great. Romney has vastly outspent his competitors for the Republican nomination with not-so-vast success. Here's our analysis of what Romney bought so far, based on the financial disclosure forms released Monday.
The New York Times reports that 44 percent of Romney's donors maxed out. While that's bad in the long run, it's theoretically good in the short run. Thats because just like in business, in campaign fundraising, you have to spend money to make money. And you have to spend less money to make money from bigger donors. So Romney should have used proportionally less of his money to raise more money, freeing him up to convince voters that he's thebomb.com. His was able to spend $10 million on communicating with voters, ABC News reports. The campaign used a super-expensive system to microtarget voters based on all kinds of consumer information, like how much they loved Williams Sonoma. Which makes these results even less impressive:
- Romney raised $6.5 million in January.
- Romney spent $19 million on the first four votes.
- Romney won two of the votes, and lost two. Then, in February, he won two more and lost three.