NOM Is Spending $200k to Fight Marriage In Minnesota. Is That Really a Lot of Money?

I’m having a tough time figuring out whether the $200,000 ad spend from the National Organization for Marriage in Minnesota is even a lot of money for a gubernatorial race. The ads that NOM is airing show four governor hopefuls who support “homosexual marriage” (Democrats Mark Dayton, Matt Entenza and Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Independence Party candidate Tom Horner; GOP candidate State Rep. Tom Emmer is not among them) and a call to action: demand your politicians let you vote on other people’s right to marry, never mind Minnesota already bans gay marriage via Baker v. Nelson. But how much does $200k get you? Can NOM blanket Minnesota’s broadcast networks in primetime?

After all, BP is also shelling out $200,000 — on a Gulf Coast tourism ad campaign. If that’s all the cash we can squeeze out of an oil giant responsible for devastating America’s shoreline, maybe NOM’s $200k spend is actually quite huge. Also, who’s checking the dollar amounts NOM says it’s spending? Maybe Brian Brown’s group is spending more, maybe it’s spending less; NOM is an institutional liar about its finances.

Then again, $200,000 is also the “boost” provided to the anti-gay group Vote Reject on 71 by a Focus on the Family affiliate to play ball Washington State’s Referendum 71 campaign, and that didn’t go so well.