Republican ‘super PACs’ buoyed by mega donors

JACK GILLUM

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — A pair of “super” polit­i­cal action com­mit­tees sup­port­ing top Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates spent nearly $24 mil­lion in Jan­u­ary, draw­ing upon major gifts and repeat dona­tions from wealthy busi­ness exec­u­tives, accord­ing to finan­cial reports the groups filed Mon­day with the government.

The super PACs — Mitt Romney-leaning Restore Our Future and Newt Gingrich-supportive Win­ning Our Future — raised a com­bined $17 mil­lion last month. That finan­cial strength allowed the groups to hit the air­waves in key pri­mary states with mil­lions of dol­lars in expen­sive TV ads.

The groups’ fundrais­ing offers a peri­odic behind-the-scenes glimpse into the iden­ti­ties of the wealthy sup­port­ers who will help elect the next pres­i­dent, along with details on how the tens of mil­lions of dol­lars they donated have been spent this elec­tion sea­son. Restore Our Future, which spent $14 mil­lion last month, has been boosted by more than two dozen repeat donors. Win­ning Our Future, which spent $9.7 mil­lion, is largely sup­ported by casino mogul Shel­don Adel­son and his wife.

The super PACs, as well as other groups sup­port­ing other can­di­dates and the indi­vid­ual cam­paigns, were required to dis­close how much they raised and the iden­ti­ties of their donors in reports filed with the Fed­eral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion by mid­night Monday.

Those reports pro­vided a snap­shot of fundrais­ing for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s early cam­paign and for Repub­li­can can­di­dates as they bat­tled dur­ing impor­tant pri­mary elec­tions in Jan­u­ary. Dur­ing the month, Repub­li­can can­di­dates Gin­grich and San­to­rum had briefly surged ahead of front-runner Rom­ney but trailed the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor in fundrais­ing. Since then, San­to­rum has climbed remark­ably in polls as sup­port eroded just as stun­ningly for Gin­grich fol­low­ing his dis­ap­point­ing show­ing in Florida.

Restore Our Future has been a boon for Rom­ney, who has ben­e­fited greatly from the group’s TV ads attack­ing Gin­grich in par­tic­u­lar. Such ads were pur­chased thanks to the finan­cial help of repeat donors, includ­ing Mar­riott Inter­na­tional Chair­man J.W. Mar­riott Jr., who has given the super PAC $750,000 to date.

The super PAC also reported new donors, includ­ing Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whit­man. Rom­ney men­tored Whit­man, recently an unsuc­cess­ful can­di­date for Cal­i­for­nia gov­er­nor, dur­ing the 1980s at Boston-based Bain & Co., the pri­vate equity firm Rom­ney headed. Whitman’s $100,000 check to Restore Our Future came days after she joined Rom­ney at a cel­e­bra­tion of his vic­tory in the New Hamp­shire primary.

Restore Our Future counted on con­tin­ued sup­port from at least 30 repeat donors who have given a com­bined $6.6 mil­lion in Jan­u­ary, accord­ing to a review of the reports by The Asso­ci­ated Press.

Mean­while, Win­ning Our Future’s $11 mil­lion in con­tri­bu­tions dur­ing the same period came almost exclu­sively from Adel­son, a friend of Gingrich’s and a staunch sup­porter of Israel. Adel­son and his wife, Miriam, each gave $5 mil­lion to the super PAC in Jan­u­ary — a move that helped keep Gingrich’s strug­gling cam­paign alive.

Other Republican-leaning super PACs reported major contributions.

Endorse Lib­erty, the group sup­port­ing Texas Rep. Ron Paul, reported roughly $2.4 mil­lion in dona­tions, includ­ing $1.7 from the bil­lion­aire founder of Pay­Pal, Peter Thiel of San Fran­cisco. Thiel, who runs a hedge fund, is a lib­er­tar­ian who has sup­ported Repub­li­can causes and can­di­dates and also has donated to California’s mar­i­juana legal­iza­tion bal­lot measure.

Obama’s cam­paign last Fri­day reported rais­ing a com­bined $29.1 mil­lion in Jan­u­ary among the cam­paign, the Demo­c­ra­tic National Com­mit­tee and other joint fundrais­ing com­mit­tees. The major super PAC back­ing Obama, Pri­or­i­ties USA Action, has yet to file its Jan­u­ary report.

Romney’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign raised $6.5 mil­lion last month for his pres­i­den­tial bid, while Gingrich’s cam­paign raised $5.5 mil­lion last month.

The reports likely will rekin­dle crit­i­cism of the groups, which were made pos­si­ble under a 2010 Supreme Court rul­ing in the Cit­i­zens United case. The super PACs must legally remain inde­pen­dent from the can­di­dates they sup­port, but many are staffed with for­mer cam­paign aides who have inti­mate knowl­edge of the cam­paigns’ strategies.

Posted by AP News on Feb 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.