Mark Hanna, the Republican Party political boss, famously declared at the outset of the McKinley-Bryan campaign of 1896: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember the second.”

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Start with the last presidential election. Most of the nearly half billion dollars — $374 million out of a total of $486 million — doled out by “super PACs” and other independent expenditure committees during the general election was by Republican groups, more than triple the $112 million spent independently in support of President Obama.

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Stevens cited Federal Election Commission reports to show that Obama was able to raise more “effective” dollars than Romney, even though the overall balance favored Romney by $140 million, $1.25 billion to $1.11 billion. The best way to see this is in Figure 1, which shows that, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, the Obama campaign had full control over $683.6 million in 2011 and 2012, or 61.4 percent of Democratic presidential spending, while the Romney campaign had control over $433.3 million, which was 34.8 percent of all Republican money expended during the campaign.



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These differences are illustrated in two additional charts put together by the Center for Responsive Politics, which show how Romney and Obama deployed their funds. Figure 2 shows that the Obama campaign spent $486.7 million on media while Figure 3 shows that Romney spent less than half that, $236 million, on media.