This year’s just-concluded Republican primary in Florida will go down as the most expensive, and nasty, in state history.

 

Determined to stop Newt Gingrich’s momentum after winning South Carolina, Mitt Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future, spent $15.3 million on ads, mostly negative ones attacking the former House speaker.

 

The $15 million expenditure is more than what John McCain spent ($11 million) on ads during the entire 2008 GOP primary race.

 

Gingrich’s camp, including the super PAC supporting him, spent only $3 million in Florida.

 

Kenneth Goldstein, president of the Kantar Media Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks content and targeting of political advertising, told The Daily Beast: “For as long as I’ve been in politics, 14 years, journalists call me and ask if this is the most negative election ad atmosphere I've ever seen, and every year I say, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ But this year it’s true.”

 

Although John McCain may not have spent that much on campaign ads during the 2008 presidential primary  season, there was one Republican candidate who spent almost triple the amount (($32 million)…Mitt Romney.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Romney Ramps Up Attack Ads Against Gingrich to Unprecedented Levels (by John Avlon, Daily Beast)