Rick Perry Super PAC Plots $55M Blitz in Early States

Rick Perry's Super PAC, funded by several of the governor's big-money backers, is planning on hitting the competition hard and fast, spending $55 million in a bid to secure Perry's nomination early in next spring's nominations process, reports MSNBC. Unencumbered by campaign financing restrictions, the theoretically independent Super PAC Make Us Great Again will pour millions into a four-phase advertising campaign, beginning with a $5 million buy on Fox News and Iowa TV stations until mid-September. Then MUGA will spend $20 million on five key early-voting states until the end of the year, followed by $20 million more in the first quarter of 2012, then $10 million to secure Perry's nomination.

"The Super PAC will probably outspend the legal presidential deal," said a veteran GOP strategist. "These Super PACs have changed the way presidential campaigns are run." While a spokesman for the Perry campaign said he had no knowledge of Make Us Great Again, an official at the Super PAC confirmed the plan was real, although old. "You're referring to an early planning document that is now outdated," said the MUGA spokesman. "As the dynamics of this primary have changed, so have our targeting and spending." (More super PACs stories.)