The Hammer and I had a two-hour IM argument on this very subject to pass the time during the last debate, to no good end. Chuck’s asking, implicitly, “Where would Romney be today if not for his dough?”, but since there’s no way to do that counterfactual without separating his wealth from the career that earned it, it’s like asking “Where would Romney be if he were a totally different person?” Besides, the lament here isn’t about Mitt so much as it is the perceived effect of saturation advertising on voters — which is itself a stupid counterfactual, tantamount to “Why do people have to react to ads like people?” while ignoring the fact that the policies being promoted in those ads may have a teensy impact on their effectiveness.

Hannity’s right: A fatally weak candidate can’t buy an election, which is why we never had a President Perot and we’ll probably never have (god willing) a President Bloomberg, although a $1 billion ad budget will certainly test the theory. I think the reason this knock has taken hold against Romney, though, is that while he’s not a weak candidate on paper, he’s run a weak enough campaign that it’s sometimes hard to believe he’s in the semifinals with McCain. Part of that is luck — a centrist-heavy field to which he’s a natural alternative, the surprising incompetence of Fred and Rudy — and part of it is owed to his team’s fundraising, but yeah, part of it is the fact that he can afford to write himself checks when he needs to. Now that he’s running against a guy whose name is an epithet to the conservative base he can expect to have his right to do so defended. But I wonder what would have happened had the final two had come down to him and ol’ Fred. Now there’s a counterfactual.