Another example of why Mitt Romney donors really should ask for a refund

He's better at pumping gas than buying media time In October, Politico's Alexander Burns, Maggie Haberman and Emily Schultheis wrote an interesting article about Mitt Romney's peculiar'and apparently ineffective'strategy of buying television ads in-house. Purely on paper, it seemed like a terrible idea, and based on this report from the Des Moines Register on television ads in Iowa over the last five weeks of the campaign, it was equally bad in practice.

Romney and the outside groups backing him spent $21.5 million in the final five weeks, essentially matching their total spending in the preceding six months, according to a Des Moines Register analysis of TV station records.

That's nearly double what Obama and his Democratic forces spent in Iowa the last five weeks.

But despite spending twice as much as Obama and his allies, Romney got clobbered in the air war:

Although Romney and his allies spent more, the Obama coalition out-advertised them.

About 13,000 more pro-Obama TV ads ran in Iowa than pro-Romney ads during the final weeks.

So Romneyworld spent twice as much as Obamaland on less effective ads that weren't seen as often. It almost makes you wonder if Mitt Romney wasn't a secret agent for Barack Obama, trying to lose the election on purpose. Cue the conspiracy theorists ... I'm sure they're out there.