Outside bucks running the show in Iowa’s Senate race

If you've got a bad case of 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”- style doe-eyed patriotic optimism, I've got a surefire cure.

Take some time to peruse the big bucks flowing into Iowa's U.S. Senate race. It's no Capra production, I assure you. It just might take some starch out of your spangled banner. Roughly three-dozen outside organizations, PACs, super PACs, 'dark money” groups, etc. have spent more than $15 million this election cycle supporting or opposing Iowa Senate candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics and its OpenSecrets.org. The center digs through Federal Election Commission data.

With polls showing a remarkably tight race between Republican Joni Ernst and Democrat Bruce Braley, and control of the U.S. Senate at stake, that number likely is going to look much bigger very soon. The site says more than $4 million has been spent by outside groups just in the last week.

The candidates themselves have raised just less than $10 million directly from donors, according to OpenSecrets, with $7.1 million for Braley and $2.5 million for Ernst. Back in the day, direct fundraising defined a campaign, but outside groups rolling in unlimited dough now run the show. All you have to do is watch TV to figure that out, unless your set has a truth filter. In that case, you might not see anything.

Braley has loudly denounced the role of conservative groups, but his allies lead the list of big outside spenders. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spent $2.9 million in Iowa so far and the Senate Majority PAC weighs in with $2.6 million. Senate Majority is a PAC tied to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and its top donor is billionaire former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, who gave the PAC $5 million. Steyer is also the bucks behind another independent group hitting Iowa's airwaves, NextGen Climate Action, which has spent $313,000 so far.

Ernst's conservative backers are gaining fast. American Crossroads, one of GOP strategist Karl Rove's multiple money machines, has spent more than $1.7 million. Its top donor is Jerrold Perenchio, former owner of the Spanish Language network Univision, who donated $2 million. He lives in the same Bel Air home used for external shots on 'The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Groups connected to the billionaire Koch Brothers are also all in for Ernst. Freedom Partners Action Fund. a Koch-backed PAC unveiled in June, has spent more than $1.1 million in Iowa, according to OpenSecrets. Freedom Partners' top donor is Arkansas-based Mountaire Corporation, a chicken products firm that gave $500,000. According to the go-to source for all things inside baseball, Politico, two other Koch-connected groups, Concerned Veterans for America and Americans For Prosperity have combined to spend $3.7 million. There's also $12,800 in direct donations to Ernst from Koch Industries employees.

It's tough for Ernst to sell herself as a down-to-earth farm girl who wants to use common sense Iowa values to solve problems in Washington while also getting big time help from the barrons of scorched earth, take-no-prisoners partisan warfare. Can Ernst work across the aisle after being bankrolled by folks who want to turn the aisle into a barbed-wire, electrified border wall?

And Ernst's top direct donor is the Senate Conservatives Fund, which has given her campaign more than $18,000. SCF was a driving political force behind last fall's government shutdown over health care reform. Not a victory for common sense.

It's also very tough for Braley to insist he's not just some elitist trial lawyer while he's raising $1.2 million from elite trial lawyers and lobbyists. OpenSecrets reports that five top national law firms directly contributed more than $15,000 each to Braley. Donors from New York-based Weitz & Luxenberg have contributed just more than $39,000, topping the list. The firm is best known for its work on cases involving mesothelioma, cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. But defective GM vehicles, low-T treatments and Remington rifle problems are all on its case list.

Among Braley's other legal eagles are New Orleans' Herman, Herman & Katz, which is deeply involved in BP oil spill settlement efforts, and Robbins, Geller, Rudman & Dowd, a San Diego firm with offices all over the nation that secured $7.3 billion in settlements for victims of the Enron scandal. The Herman firm has given more to Braley than its home state Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.

At least we can track these direct donations. Disclosure among outside groups is sketchy. Many disclose, but some, such as American Crossroads, only partially disclose. Groups such as Americans for Prosperity and the U.S.. Chamber of Commerce, technically 'social welfare” non-profits, keep their donors a secret. Ditto with liberal groups gunning for Ernst, including the League of Conservation Voters and Environmental Defense Action Fund. At least dark money is now bipartisan.

So what's my problem anyway with this freewheeling free speech fest? Am I unaware that Super PACs are people, too? Have I forgotten that I work for a company that owns a TV station?

One problem I have is that so much of this money, especially the outside money, is mostly being spent on negative, distorted garbage. Of the $15 million spent by outsiders, according to OpenSecrets, more than $10 million has been spent to oppose, aka carpet bomb, Braley or Ernst, and not to tell you why you should support either or them.

In strategic terms, these groups want to inflict maximum damage while also rallying partisan loyalists to fight big oil or liberal lawyers or whatever boogeymen can be dredged up and slapped on a screen. Cue the ominous music.

If you're wondering how our politics went from being a contest of candidates actually running to govern to a zero-sum Armageddon aimed at seizing, snatching or holding power at all costs, this Senate campaign has solved your mystery.

But that's not my biggest problem with all this.

This is the most important Iowa U.S. Senate campaign in two decades, which could shape how this state is represented for many years to come. And yet, Iowans are not setting its agenda. We're not the ones dictating the important issues or shaping the debate.

Instead, it's all been contracted out to mercenaries with fat checkbooks. We've outsourced our Senate seat to Arkansas chicken companies, hedge fund managers, New York lawyers and guys who live in Bel Air with swimmin' pools and movie stars. We're just a backdrop for a national fight over Senate control.

Sure, we've still got the votes. But this campaign isn't ours.

And really, I concede, who would want it? But if Iowans don't own the campaign, who is Mr. or Ms. Winner going to work for when they go to Washington?

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com