the candidate they wanted. indiana is one of them. obviously todd akin in missouri is another. olympia snowe retiring is another. republicans wanted a candidate and didn t get him or her. in each of those cases, you re seeing republicans pay a price for it. the betting money is that mourdock will prevail but it s much closer. there s going to be resources invested in the state that will draw away from other races. in maine angus king is suffering because he promised not to caucus with either party. a lot of democrats are worried he won t be a democrat. i think if you were to say, listen, i ll caucus with the democrats, he would get a lot of votes and that wouldn t be a race. you won t get any assignments if you don t caucus. you sit there and do nothing. he s saying i m going to go up there and do powerless, vote for me. i don t see how that s a winning argument. he s got to change that. and in connecticut one last thing, linda mcmahon ran two years ago, she has statewide i.d.,
money effectively, and how much ad time actually fits on to the airwaves? prices will keep going up as the super pacs and campaigns bid it up. but there is a limit here as we ll see in this election. president obama is buying air time in ohio, colorado and new hampshire. outspending romney in each of these states right now. that s where we started. let s finish with that. nira, obama, the poor guy in this race. we ve all heard that. he s spending more money on ads in the states that matter, therefore getting his numbers up. well, i do think i mean, what nick s story points out is that they just don t romney has taken a gamble. he put out these large numbers, and he doesn t have the money right now to really match. and so the challenge for them, i think, is to match one-to-one. poor little rich kid. anyway, thank you, nicholas. good story. and nira, as always. when we returns let me finish with a linkup we saw between the move by republicans to keep minoriies from voting whi
with a dirty angry money report. for months we ve heard chest thumping reports from the romney campaign about how much money they ve raised. take a look. for each of the last three months, the romney campaign reported over $100 million, and out-raised the obama campaign for much of the summer. these numbers don t include the powerhouse fund-raising from outside groups like those super pacs. but romney s alleged fund raising success have been followed by a mystery. if his campaign is flesh with cash why is he being outspend in ad buys in crucial swing states especially at a time when he could use good publicity? it turns out money has been ticketed for republican national committee and state and local elections. in other words, it s not his. it s theirs. and with me now is new york times reporter nick kamusori. who wrote about this today. and neara , former policy director for hillary clinton s campaign. let me go to nicholas. you re new to the show. tell us why mitt romney who i alwa
lot of august and helps explain why there were so few romney ads on the airwaves. there was money, it just wasn t in his account where he could use it the way he wanted to. let s talk about small donors there. somebody put me on all of these lists. i don t give a nickel, i m not allowed to because of my profession and working here at nbc. you want to have dinner with jim messina, do you want to have dinner with valley jarrett, want to meet this guy, that guy, want to meet the president, take a chance. endless fund-raising from small donors. is he better going through the social media than this guy is with the big shots? i think what s great about small donors, you can go back at them. as nick was saying, there s a limit with the large donors. and the small donors, the president has a a lot of people never get near max dollar. yeah, and they can keep giving. the difference is, we expect them to increase their giving as the election gets closer, as they see get more excited,
like that is involved in your state politics? do they know that? i don t know that they do. but it absolutely is true. karl rove is pumping the money into the state. i don t think he cares about montana. i think he s got a whole different agenda. doesn t care about the middle class, doesn t care about working families, small businesses, kids getting a good education. he s got his own agenda, and i think it s unfortunate. that s why citizens united is such a threat. it s not good for democrats, not good for republicans, it s not good for our democracy. i don t think the architect as he called himself is good for anything. thank you senator jon tester of montana, good luck. up next, republicans talk about freedom, we all enjoy it, but why were coal minors in ohio forced to answer a mitt romney rally and not even paid for showing up? this is hardball, the place for politics.