In South Carolina, the big winner for most money spent on advertising is, drum roll please… Mitt Romney, who very likely won’t be the winner in tomorrow’s primary. So I guess that actually makes him the big loser.

While Mitt Romney is seeking to downplay Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, he has still aired more TV ads there than any of his GOP competitors.

Nielsen Monitor-Plus reported today that between February 2007 and Tuesday, Romney ran nearly half of all Republican ads. However, in the campaign’s closing days, which he has spent in Nevada, he has been out-advertised by Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Ron Paul.

Romney’s spots aired 5,257 times during that period in the Charleston, Columbia, Greenville-Spartanburg and Myrtle Beach-Florence TV markets, according to Nielsen. Huckabee was a distant second with 2,049 spots. McCain, who has a slim lead in the latest polls, was third with 1,471 spots. [FOON RHEE - Boston Globe]

I think the Beatles wrote a song about this in which they sang “money can’t buy me love.” That’d be a great song for this story. Only change “love” to “votes.” And just for kicks, put the words “wasted on TV ads” between “money” and “can’t.”