another crucial figure in the fight to pass gun safety legislation. a huge amount of money in the race came from outside groups, including over $300,000 from the nra. but this time, the nra faced some financial competition from gun advocacy groups, including $350,000 from new york city mayor michael bloomberg. yesterday s vote was clearly a major blow in the desperate need to improve gun safety. but with mr. bloomberg leaving office in just a few months, perhaps he ll be able to focus more of his resources on this issue of guns in america. for missouri more now, i m joined by democratic strategist julian epstein. julian, i have to get your immediate reaction to what has happened in colorado. was this a case of hope and change buried yet again by the nra? no. and i actually don t think this was a major setback. i think it s a blip on the radar screen. this was a recall election and very, very extremely small state legislative districts. it s in the heart of gun country.
mark can i says gomez will vote for conservatives and is not the kind massachusetts moderate that gomez claims he is. he says mark can i is reckless big spender and washed up insider and budget responsibility for the debt after nearly 40 years in washington. if you want to talk numbers, the year was 1976. $680 billion was the national debt. it is now $17 billion, sir. you are washington, d.c. and you own the national debt, sir. reporter: pretty tough stuff. a nasty race with lots of name-calling attack ads by the campaigns and lot of outside groups. last night mark can i raised eyebrows for ridicule for gomez s federal debt and deficit vocabulary. to hear mr. gomez talk about math and budget. it is not math arithmetic. it noise not as complicated as math. something you learn in grammar school. reporter: there is distinction between arithmetic like addition and
help protect democracy. so, this is more than just wisconsin, scott. that s one of the scary things here is for every document we were able to obtain here, there s probably 10, 20, 50 other ones we don t know about. that s just within the romney campaign. i mean, there are these new outside groups who are fanning across the country like true the vote whose express purpose is to send poll watchers to heavy minority districts and the idea is to slow down the process, issue challenges on eligibility, put up as many barriers as possible to vote. well, so that we must deal with these barriers and keep going, as joe madison said, get out of my face, let me vote. that s right. get out of my face, i m going to vote. absolutely. scott, joe, thanks for your time tonight. thank you, rev.
in 2008 artist shepard ferry inspired many with his barack obama hope poster. as a supporter of unpack.org, a group aimed at reducing the influence of money in politics he presided over an art competition to select an image to inspire others. the winner 21-year-old nashville artist landon wicks created this image showing the monopoly man rich uncle penny bags along with the message keep money out of politics. ferry and obama supporters says, quote that effort comes against this backdrop. last week, the obama and romney campaigns surpassed the $2 billion mark in fund-raising which doesn t include the roughly 300 million spent by outside groups.
adelson or donald trump. regardless of the spit take it causes from your father s old friends as you try to wrap yourself in the mantle of your father s integrity, the fact is funds must be raised and the romney campaign announced that just last month in september they raised $170 million chrks, which is a lot but is $10 million less than the obama campaign raised. the campaigns are closely matched with what they are raising. where the president and democrats are getting swamped is by the money spent by outside groups. the dark money. money spent outside the campaign. since labor day the spending on the presidential election by outside groups, the proportion of that spending that s been pro-romney and anti-obama is almost three quarters a huge majority of the dark money spending is republican money. that s what s swamping the democrats. what the money is being spent on