Romney's Super PAC Is Destroying Gingrich

Newt Gingrich might well be the first big-name casualty of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that rewrote the rules on campaign financing. The decision cleared the way for "super PACs" like the one backing Mitt Romney called Restore Our Future, which has poured $2.8 million so far into nonstop TV ads attacking Gingrich, reports the New York Times. Gingrich's standing in the polls has plunged since the spots started airing three weeks ago, and it's all perfectly legal because the group operates independently of the Romney campaign (even if it's run by former Romney aides).

These super PACs can take in unlimited donations, unlike the candidates' official campaigns, and the arms war is just beginning. “Iowa is ground zero of what we can expect in every competitive state for the rest of the presidential election,” says the executive director of a group that tracks such things. Obama backers already have formed a super PAC of their own, called Priorities USA Action. (More Mitt Romney 2012 stories.)