contracostatimes.com
By Nicholas Confessore and Jim Rutenberg New York Times
Posted: 12/30/2011 07:00:40 PM PST

DES MOINES, Iowa -- The attacks began three weeks ago and have not let up since: TV ad after TV ad slamming Newt Gingrich for having "more baggage than the airlines," for being fined by Congress for ethics violations, for his position on illegal immigration, even for admitting that he has made mistakes on the campaign trail.

Democrats and Republicans alike have singled out the $2.8 million-and-counting air deluge as the biggest factor in Gingrich's drop in polls of Iowa voters and Mitt Romney's corresponding rise, reshaping the critical first contest of the Republican primary season to Romney's benefit.

The ads, which continue to blanket Iowa days before the caucuses here, were created and paid for by people with deep knowledge of the Romney campaign's strategic thinking, close relationships with Romney's most generous donors, and even research on what TV viewers like and dislike most about Romney himself.

Yet neither Romney nor his staff has had to lift a finger or spend a dollar to make it happen. In a stark illustration of how last year's landmark Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance has created powerful new channels for outside money to influence elections, the negative onslaught is the work of a group called Restore Our Future.

The most prominent of the "super PACs," which can accept unlimited donations for purposes of supporting or attacking candidates, it operates independently of the Romney campaign but under the direction of former Romney aides who do not need to be told what the candidate needs.

The result: Romney has effectively outsourced his negative advertising to a group that has raised millions of dollars from his donors to inundate his opponents with attacks -- all without breaking the rules that forbid super PACs to explicitly coordinate with candidates. Polls showed Gingrich's support in Iowa tumbling immediately after the Restore Our Future ads began running in early December.

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