In a campaign characterized by big donors, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, stand out. The couple's latest blizzard of political check writing -- which produced more than $15 million of donations to Republican candidates and causes in a one week period this month -- brought their total political contributions for the 2012 cycle to a whopping $52 million.
The next closest big campaign donor, billionaire nuclear waste entrepreneur Harold Simmons, has given $23 million.
The Adelsons lead a roster of 134 individuals or organizations giving $1 million or more to campaigns in this, the first presidential campaign to ...
Continue readingWeek’s outside spending favors Republicans 2:1
Less than two weeks before the election, outside spending took another big leap last week, jumping to $180 million since last Friday favoring Republicans nearly two-to-one.
Continue readingOutside political spending crosses $1 billion mark
Outside groups have spent more than $1 billion trying to influence this year's election, and the tidal wave of special interest money so no signs of abating in the 10 days that remain before Election Day.
The total, tabulated by Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money, is especially mind-boggling considering that it comes in a campaign that has focused largely on the anemic economy and underscores the changed landscape in the first presidential campaign to be contested following the Supreme Court 2010 decision in Citizens United, which opened the door for deep-pocketed donors to flaunt their wealth in ways ...
Continue readingDead end disclosure: Ohio super PAC lists dark money donors
The Government Integrity Fund Action Network, a Columbus, Ohio-based super PAC that dropped a late $1.1 million ad buy opposing Connecticut House candidate Elizabeth Esty last week, disclosed today the big donors who funded it: A pair of political nonprofits that don't disclose their donors.
New Models LLC contributed $627,000, while the Government Integrity Fund, a nonprofit sister organization of the super PAC, gave $475,000. Because both New Models and the Government Integrity Fund are social welfare organizations, they are not required to disclose their donors.
The three groups show why, in the post-Citizens United world ...
Continue readingEleventh hour political donations marked by Adelson largesse
A casino-fueled and Israel-inspired power couple that so far has underwritten Republican candidates and causes to the tune of more than $35 million in the 2012 campaign continued its open-handed ways in the closing weeks of the contest.
The final accountings of campaign committees before Election Day are due at the Federal Election Commission at midnight Thursday and early returns show big contributions from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson in the first two weeks of October.
Sheldon Adelson, who owns the Las Vegas Sands Corp. as well as casinos in Bethelehem, Pa., Singapore and Macau, gave $1.5 million Independence Virginia ...
Continue readingCrossroads machine drops combined $78 million this month — so far
Blowing away the competition, the GOP-aligned independent groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have now dropped a combined $78 million in October alone to influence the 2012 election.
That’s about double what the official Republican party committees have spent on independent expenditures so far this month.
Among outside givers, the conglomerate founded by longtime Republican strategists Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove, are in a class all their own. You would have to total the October spending of the next eight biggest spending GOP outside groups to surpass the Crossroads machine – from the pro-Romney Restore Our Future’s $31 million ...
Continue readingSuper PACs that stay off the air
With early voting starting Saturday in Florida, a Miami-based group of community organizers and union members will be undertaking a major push across five of the battleground state’s cities to get voters to the polls.
And this group—believe it or not—is a super PAC. Yes, one of the same committees that are often described as tools of the corporate and the rich and maligned for polluting the airwaves with negative advertising.
But Florida Freedom PAC is a partnership between Florida New Majority, a community organizing group that sprung up in 2009 to empower the state’s minorities ...
Continue readingSpending millions to end spending
Ironically, the super PAC named “Ending Spending Action Fund” may end up having the largest single donation to a super PAC. Records show Joe Ricketts, who built his fortune through Ameritrade, is trying to reduce spending by spending -- a lot.
Ricketts wrote a check for $5.48 million to the super PAC in September. That beats the $5 million checks written earlier in the cycle by Sheldon and Miriam Adelson and Harold Simmons And it made up about half of the $11.3 million that Ricketts donated to Ending Spending last month alone.
The owner of the Chicago Cubs, Ricketts ...
Continue readingRomney, Obama blitz Colorado with ads and visits
When GOP nominee Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama arrive in this battleground state for campaign rallies over the next 24 hours, they'll be accompanied by a barrage of television ads on programs ranging from news broadcasts to The View to Jimmy Kimmel to General Hospital.
Continue readingCorporate, union and nonprofit giving to super PACs tops $167 million
Approximately one-third of the money that super PACs have collected so far in the 2012 campaign come from organizations such as corporations, labor unions and other political committees.
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