"Democrats losing race for super PAC money" by Brian C. Mooney | Globe Staff, July 05, 2012
That's weird because my printed paper says GOP winning.
The top “super PACs’’ supporting Republicans in the fall elections have raised more than three times as much money as super PACs aligned with Democrats, $158 million to $47 million, a Globe analysis shows.
The imbalance comes as well-to-do Republicans have been far more generous than their Democratic counterparts, more frequently tossing as much as $1 million or more into the GOP cause.
Unless things change in the next four months, the gap could cost the Democrats the White House and both houses of Congress, no less an authority than President Obama said in a conference call to major Democratic donors late last week.
I think so, yup. That and the rigged machines.
The president urged his top funders to step up their efforts in a system of campaign finance that permits corporations, labor unions, and individuals to give unlimited amounts to super PACs, which spend independently of candidates and parties.
Thus far, big Republican funders have dominated the show. At the end of May, Casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, had already contributed $20 million to super PACs supporting a Republican Congress and failed GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. Published reports have said Adelson gave a super PAC supporting presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney another $10 million, an amount not included in the Globe’s overall totals because it has not yet been officially reported to the Federal Election Commission.
Related: Political Odd Couple
But it works!
Another Republican billionaire, Harold Simmons, his Texas-based chemicals and metals conglomerate Contran Corp., and his wife, Annette, have given a combined $18.3 million to a total of nine GOP-allied super PACs, Federal Election Commission records show.
By contrast, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is the leading individual Democratic donor, having given $2.1 million to two pro-Democrat super PACs.
Beyond the sheer volume from some donors, the imbalance also is reflected in the number of individual entities making jumbo donations. At least 35 individuals and corporations had donated $1 million or more to Republican super PACs, compared with 16 (including seven labor unions) to Democratic groups.
The lopsided pattern also appears in the marquee presidential contest. Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, had taken in $61.5 million, more than four times the $14.6 million raised by Priorities USA Action, the super PAC supporting Obama, through the end of last month.
The race to tap wealthy contributors went into overdrive after 2010 federal court rulings that dramatically loosened campaign finance regulations. Individuals are still limited in how much they can give to candidates’ committees and party committees. But now super PACs are running parallel operations, collecting whatever sums people want to give; they are not supposed to coordinate their spending with candidates.
The court let the flood gates open on that and upheld crappy corporate health care?
In his call last week, which the online news site Daily Beast reported after obtaining a recording, Obama told major funders: “We are going to see more money spent on negative ads through these super PACs and anonymous outside groups than ever before. And if things continue as they have so far, I’ll be the first sitting president in modern history to be outspent in his reelection campaign.”
The “anonymous outside” groups Obama referred to are politically active nonprofit organizations, the most active of which are on the Republican side, set up under the tax code to promote “social welfare” and not required to disclose their donors. Super PACs must disclose their contributors.
Republicans say their supporters are kicking in millions in direct response to Obama’s presidency.
“There are conservative donors who are dramatically motivated by the explosion of spending, regulations, and debt under this president, and there is a great desire to put the brakes on his agenda,” said Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for American Crossroads, a muscular GOP super PAC that has attacked Obama and Democrats running for Congress and had raised $34.3 million through the end of May.
Democrats, including the president on his conference call, have said Democrats may be contributing less because they are overconfident the president can beat Romney or they are disillusioned by the slow pace of promised change in Washington.
You can put me in that second category. I think he has already lost.
But there also is a deep philosophical objection to the system of unlimited spending that has blossomed since the January 2010 Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case, which said corporations and unions could spend as much as they pleased to influence elections. Others don’t want their money to be spent on negative advertising, said Democratic fund-raisers and spokesmen for wealthy donors.
For instance, the only super PAC donation this cycle by Peter Lewis, who made his fortune as head of Progressive Insurance, was $200,000 to American Bridge 21st Century, which specializes in research it shares with Democratic-leaning groups.
“He finds the corrupting power of money offensive with its negativity and denigration of opponents,” Jennifer Frutchy, his spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. He has no other plans to give to super PACs this year, she said, preferring instead “to build progressive infrastructure.”
It sure can do that to some people.
In the 2004 cycle, Lewis gave $23.2 million to independent groups that supported Democrats, the second most of any individual, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
In some respects, the 2012 money race is a reverse image of 2004, when big Democratic donors, animated by intense opposition to Republican incumbent George W. Bush, heavily outspent rival GOP givers to underwrite expensive field operations and advertising paid for by independent groups. The effort failed to capture the presidency, however, and some Democratic activists believe that failure has dampened enthusiasm this year.
Not that it really would have mattered, but I always wondered how he lost that election.
And the status-quo, system-protecting AmeriKan media never questions it.
In 2004, of the 24 individuals who gave $2 million or more to independent groups, 14 were Democrats. They donated a combined $109 million compared with $39 million donated by 10 Republicans, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Billionaire financier George Soros, who led all donors with $23.7 million to independent Democratic groups, in this cycle so far has targeted only about $2.2 million to independent groups, with the lion’s share going to organizations that engage in research or grass-roots liberal advocacy.
“He’s given $1 million each to [America Votes] and [American Bridge 21st Century],” his spokesman, Michael Vachon, said in an e-mail. “As to what he will do in the future, I don’t know.”
Similarly, FEC records show that film producer Stephen Bing, who gave $13.9 million to independent groups supporting Democrats in 2004, has donated $425,000 to super PACs this cycle — $250,000 to Majority PAC, which is trying to elect Democrats to the Senate, $150,000 to American Bridge, and $25,000 to the League of Conservation Voters.
Bing “does not comment on these matters,” Paul Bloch, a spokesman, wrote in an e-mail.
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"Romney ups fund-raising bar with June haul" July 06, 2012
Rumors of Romney’s big month had swirled for a couple of weeks, sounding alarms in the Obama camp.
In an e-mail to supporters last week, Obama worried that he could be the first incumbent president to be outspent in his bid for reelection.
“I’m not just talking about the super PACs and anonymous outside groups — I’m talking about the Romney campaign itself,” Obama wrote in the e-mail.
“Those outside groups just add even more to the underlying problem. We can be outspent and still win — but we can’t be outspent 10-to-1 and still win.”
The Romney campaign has said that last week’s Supreme Court ruling that upheld Obama’s health care law has energized Republicans — and opened their wallets....
Why does everything always blow up in the Democrats' face?
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"Corporate money funneled to nonprofits with an agenda; Businesses push political views anonymously" by Mike McIntire and Nicholas Confessore | New York Times, July 08, 2012
NEW YORK — American Electric Power, one of the country’s largest utilities, gave $1 million last November to the Founding Fund, a new tax-exempt group that intends to raise most of its money from corporations and to push for limited government.
The giant insurer Aetna directed more than $3 million last year to the American Action Network, a Republican-leaning nonprofit organization that has spent millions of dollars attacking lawmakers who voted for President Obama’s health care bill, even as Aetna’s president publicly voiced support for the legislation.
Other major corporations — including Prudential Financial, Dow Chemical, and the drugmaker Merck — have poured millions of dollars more into the US Chamber of Commerce, a tax-exempt trade organization that has pledged to spend at least $50 million on political advertising this election cycle.
Two years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the door for corporate spending on elections, relatively little money has flowed from company treasuries into super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions but must disclose their donors.
Instead, there is growing evidence that large corporations are trying to influence campaigns by donating money to tax-exempt organizations that can spend millions of dollars without being subject to the disclosure requirements that apply to candidates, parties, and PACs.
The secrecy shrouding these groups makes it impossible to make a full accounting of corporate influence on the electoral process.
But glimpses of their donors emerged in a New York Times review of corporate governance reports, tax returns filed by nonprofit organizations, and regulatory filings by insurers and labor unions.
The review found that corporate donations, many of them previously unreported, went to groups, large and small, dedicated to shaping public policy on both state and national levels. From a redistricting fight in Minnesota to the sprawling battleground of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections, corporations are opening their wallets and altering the political world....
And while you weren't paying attention, Americans, you lo$t your nation.
The growing role of issue groups has prompted a rash of complaints and lawsuits from watchdog organizations accusing groups like the American Action Network, Crossroads, and the pro-Obama Priorities USA of operating as sham charities whose primary purpose is not the promotion of social welfare, but winning elections. Efforts in Congress to force more disclosure for politically active nonprofit organizations have been repeatedly stymied by Republicans, who have described the push as an assault on free speech.
Labor unions, which are among the beneficiaries of Citizens United, have also donated millions of dollars to national super PACs and state-level nonprofit groups involved in partisan battles over government spending, collective bargaining, and health care....
Yeah, right, labor benefited a whole pile. Ever notice in the rare instance "their candidate" wins they get stiffed anyway?
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Also see: NAACP returns to old battle: access to voting
At least the Dems are winning somewhere:
"Headstart for Democrats in the digital campaign; Candidates increasing digital efforts" by Bobby Caina Calvan | Globe Staff, July 07, 2012
WASHINGTON — President Obama is far more “liked” than Republican Mitt Romney....
A barometer in the presidential race?
No, because then Ron Paul would be the Republic nominee and future president. He wins all the online polls.
Yet the expanding digital frontier has emerged as another battle line in the campaign for the White House, with a host of powerful communication tools — including Facebook, Twitter, and text messages — that candidates now must master. The question is which candidate can best exploit the troves of personal data available online to raise the most money, get out a message, and bring supporters to the ballot box in November.
Related: Presidential Campaigns Keep in Touch With Voters
By SPYING on your WEB SURFING?
For now, the digital divide favors the Obama campaign....
And as we know from the Ron Paul experience, it means absolutely nothing going up against the scripted and staged selection coverage by the AmeriKan media.
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