In an exclusive first-look into previously undisclosed donations last week, OpenSecrets Blogreported that a mystery health group known as the Center to Protect Patients Rights funneled tens of millions of dollars to politically-active nonprofit groups in the lead-up to the 2010 elections. Those nonprofit groups, which by law do not have to publicly disclose their donors, include some of the heaviest spenders on political advertising that cycle, such as Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity and American Future Fund.
Rachel Maddow covered the investigation on her show late last week. Watch the full clip here, and read our original investigation — which has since been covered by the Los Angeles Times —here.
"It’s go time. It’s time to step it up,"
- A top Democrat involved with one of the outside groups working to reelect the president, as reported in The Hill.
Such left-leaning outside groups are losing the money race to conservatives by a landslide. Organizers are under intense pressure to prod, poke and convince wealthy liberal donors to donate big money to super PACs and 501(c) groups organized to support the President and Democrats.
What do you think? Will wealthy liberal or left-leaning donors ever catch up to conservatives in the outside money race?
Fox airs anti-Obama attack
A nearly four-minute video critical of President Barack Obama made its way onto Fox News’ airwaves Tuesday during the program “Fox & Friends.”
The video looked and sounded like it could have been made by a super PAC or even the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. But it wasn’t. It was made by Chris White, an associate producer at Fox.
“We decided to take a look back at the president’s first term to see if it lived up to ‘Hope and Change,’” co-host Gretchen Carlson while introducing the video.
‘Hope and Change’ was the campaign slogan of Obama in 2008.
White’s video argued the change Obama has brought included higher gas prices, a larger national debt and more Americans on food stamps.
While Carlson and her co-hosts were complimentary of the piece, executives at the news network later distanced themselves from the video, which has sparked controversy.
“The package that aired on FOX & Friends was created by an associate producer and was not authorized at the senior executive level of the network,” Fox vice president Bill Shine said in a statement. “This has been addressed with the show’s producers.”
Texas’ super PAC shoot out
A handful of super PACs and other conservative groups collectively spent more than $6.4 million on independent expenditures ahead of Tuesday’s GOP primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas).
Roughly half of these ads were by groups supportive of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, while about half were by groups backing Ted Cruz, the state’s former solicitor general.
Because no candidate received more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary, Dewhurst and Cruz, the top two vote getters, are heading into a runoff election on July 31, giving their allies more time to flood the airwaves.
“The timing was fortunate, but the message uncoordinated.”
So sayeth Johnathon Collegio, a spokesperson for the mega-super PAC American Crossroads, in response to request for comment from Politico about why his group’s new political ad looks, sounds and feels so similar to an ad released by Mitt Romney’s campaign.
Oh yeah, and they were released on the same day.
By law, super PACs can’t coordinate advertising strategy with candidates. But even if there is no direct coordination, the ads show just how far super PACs and other outside groups have been willing to push that line this election cycle.
Call it coordination or call it coincidence, but it’s clear there’s no robust mechanism, and little government appetite, to dissuade moneyed campaigns and super PACs from dancing near or around rules governing concerted activity and messaging which, strictly speaking, isn’t legal.
Here’s the Crossroads ad:
And Romney/Crossroads are the only ones: Just two weeks ago, the Obama campaign and a super PAC supporting the president’s re-election ran very similar ads with some fortunate timing, as well. We highlighted those here.
This PAC makes no secrets about its stance on attacking candidates, or at least, that’s what their name suggests.
The Talkin’ Smack PAC has yet to report any expenditures, but you can check out their Statement of Organization here. As good investigative journalists, we’ll be keeping tabs on which candidates they may start talking ‘smack’ about.
Though the money flow in this election cycle has been more exciting than in the past, the subject matter overall can certainly seem … dry. We enjoy these snarky super PAC names as a bit of comedic relief, but in reality, is this PAC’s name really any weirder than “Restore Our Future” or “American Bridge 21st Century”?
You wouldn’t think that figuring out which presidential candidate has raised the most money would be hard to do — just see how much money is in each candidate’s campaign’s account, right?
Well, not necessarily.
Both President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney have created joint fundraising committees in an attempt to attract as much campaign cash as possible. While the most a candidate committee can receive is $5,000, these joint committees can collect a maximum of $75,800.
How is that possible?
Only $5,000 goes to the candidate’s official war chest; $30,800 goes to the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee; the rest is distributed to other party committees (see chart above).
In April, Obama’s campaign raised $25.7 million, including $4.5 million that was transferred in from his joint fundraising committee. Meanwhile, Romney’s campaign raised less than half of that amount, reporting just $11.7 million in receipts to the Federal Election Commission.
But Romney campaign officials point out that April was the first month of activity by the Romney Victory Fund, his joint fundraising committee. They say the fund brought in an additional $11.4 million. How much of that will go to Romney’s campaign? His people won’t say. And the Romney Victory Fund files quarterly reports, so we won’t know for sure until July.
‘Glee’ star Jane Lynch narrates pro-Obama video, ponies up cash
The re-election campaign of President Barack Obama has tapped actress Jane Lynch, who famously plays Sue Sylvester on the Fox series “Glee,” for a new five-minute video, released Wednesday, touting Obama’s leadership in the fight for equal rights for the nation’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens.
Notably, this is not the first time the Obama campaign has gotten support from Lynch, who is a lesbian and married her wife Lara Embry in 2010. Records show that Lynch donated $10,000 to the “Obama Victory Fund” last June. That money was split evenly between the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Records further show that Lynch and Embry each donated $1,000 earlier this year to Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin, who is running for the U.S. Senate. If elected, Baldwin would become the first openly gay senator.
Money from the LGBT community will likely continue to play a big role on the campaign. Already the Center for Responsive Politics calculates that about one out of every nine of Obama’s top bundlers — those who have raised at least $500,000 from their friends and associates and delivered that to the campaign in one “bundle” — are openly gay. Lynch is not among them, but other openly gay figures include interior designer Michael Smith, HBO executive James Costos, Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner and Laura Ricketts, an owner of the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball team.
Meet Romney’s lobbyist bundlers
For the past year, the Obama administration has taken a good bit of criticism for its federal energy loan program and the green company failures that resulted soon after (Solyndra and Fiskar, for instance).
Now, a connection has surfaced between stumbling solar firm Abound Solar, which received a $400 million federal loan guarantee through the same scandalized DOE program, and … Mitt Romney. As iWatch News’ Michael Beckel reports, Cathy Tripodi, a lobbyist for Abound, raised $27,000 for Romney’s campaign in April.
Obama also has a few bundlers connected to Solyndra, who were disclosed last year. Candidates for president aren’t required to release the names of these high-dollar fundraisers (unless they are lobbyists). Unlike Obama, Romney has not publicly revealed the names of all of his campaign bundlers — disclosures that were made by previous Republican presidential candidates, including George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
In April, Tripodi was joined by two other first-time lobbyist bundlers: Chris Bravacos, whose sole client so far this year is the prescription drug trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), and Kraft Foods’ Abigail Blunt.
Documents show Romney’s most successful lobbyist bundlers will not go unrewarded — a few will get special access to debates and GOP events.
Thanks in part to a last-minute, $250,000 ad buy from super PAC Ending Spending Action Fund, Nebraska state Sen. Deb Fischer managed to defeat frontrunner Jon Bruning to secure the GOP nomination in Tuesday’s Senate primary. The huge spending boost was made possible by one man: TD Ameritrade founder and Chicago Cubs owner Joe Ricketts.
Such an influential role has campaign finance watchdogs concerned about the access that the large donation could grant Ricketts if Fischer prevails against Democrat Bob Kerrey in November.
“I don’t think there is any doubt Ricketts will get more access to Fischer than regular Nebraskans,” said Adam Smith, communications director at Public Campaign. “This is about electing politicians that will benefit his bottom line and the TD Ameritrade lobbyists will know they have a likely champion if she’s elected in November.”
Read the full story from iWatch News’ Michael Beckel. For more on the Ricketts family’s sprawling political connections, check out OpenSecrets’ post from yesterday.
