Outside Money Rules in Colorado Senate Race

Colorado Senate candidates Michael Bennet, left, and Ken Buck, debate on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Oct. 17, 2010.

/ AP Photo/NBC, William B. Plowman

With all the outside campaign money being thrown around, which race has gotten the most? We can tell you: it's the Bennet v. Buck race for Colorado Senate. As of this week, the race has attracted nearly $30 million in "outside" funding.

Money spent by outside groups that is not directly given to the candidate qualifies as outside funding. That means that California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's internal contributions -- she has put more than $140 million of her own money toward her campaign -- doesn't qualify. 

According to "Open Secrets," the biggest outside spenders include the Democrat's and the Republican's Senate Campaign Committees and a non-party group: The DSCC ($6.4 million), the NRSC ($4 million), and American Crossroads ($4.7 million). Republican challenger Ken Buck has gotten exactly twice as much from outside groups ($2.6 million) as has Michael Bennet ($1.3 million). For the record, a local poll says the race is a dead heat: each candidate has 47% support.

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Sharyl Attkisson is a CBS News Investigative Correspondent based in Washington. You can read more of her posts in Hotsheet here.

[gep1955]

This is why the TEA Party has come into being. Politicians for sale to the highest bidder. The system is broken and needs to return to its constitutional roots. At least the "right wing" recognizes the threat to the country whether you're left or right. The left only seems to recognize threats to itself and will sacrifice the country in order to achieve marxist/socialist dominance. In 20 months the socialists in Washington have added $3.5 trillion in debt (thats $3,500 billion dollars folks) on top of the $10 trillion in place when they took over. We are slaves to all those who have financed this debt and they continually become richer as we become poorer. Both Obama and Geitner have said America's best days are past. Why would any sane American think this is a good thing?

[steamed2]

The saddest thing about the political system in the U.S. today is that the American voter seems incapable of realizing the only true ?conspiracy? operating absolutely unchecked today is the loosely-knit cabal of multinational corporations and their Washington-based lobbyists with donations that will top 2 billion dollars this election, much due to the recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited special interest money. Now we don?t even have the right to know if it?s coming from outside the country! The amazing thing is, nobady cares! Do you really think it matters if you are a Democrat or a Republican? Apparently brain-dead, Demo?s and Republican members have even fallen for the garbage spoon-fed to them regarding the financial melt-down. As retired financial crimes investigator, I can tell you that there is a substantial ?paper trail? that shows exactly who is responsible for everything that happened. Remember, all you have to do is follow the money, stupid. Ever hear of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999? Or the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000? How about the 2004 repeal of the Net Capital Rule? Anyone? Anyone? And you bozo?s think you have the slightest clue about who?s running things in this country? Go ahead, at the next rally, scream at your Democratic or Republican opponent like the billions of dollars in carefully contrived programming has convinced you to do. You've never questioned why is has never mattered which party was in charge, in the past 50 years? Anyone? In 1960 there was only a dozen ?lobbyists? in Washington D.C. Now there are over 3,500 registered lobbyists.

[noloyalisti]

Right wing corporate front groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce and Crossroads have pledged to dump $400 million dollars into the 2010 campaigns to further the conservative agenda. The Senate races alone have received almost 40 mullion with an 8 to 1 advantage being spent on Republicans.