The Caucus: Pro-Gingrich Group Raises Almost $11 Million in January

Newt Gingrich is getting by with a lot of help from his friends.

News and analysis on campaign fund-raising.

A “super PAC” backing Mr. Gingrich, Winning Our Future, reported raising close to $11 million in January, according to campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday. Most of that money came from just three people: Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner; his wife, Miriam Adelson; and Harold Simmons, a Texas industrialist and prominent Republican donor.

That money helped pay for ads that pummeled Mitt Romney over his record in the private equity business during the lead up to the South Carolina primary last month, setting up a major win for Mr. Gingrich. The group spent almost $10 million in January and ended the month with about $2.5 million in cash on hand.

In a twist, Mr. Simmons is also a major donor to Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mr. Romney, meaning that Mr. Simmons’s money was to some extent working against itself during the January run of Republican primaries.

View the original article here

The Caucus: Pro-Romney 'Super PAC' Spent $14 Million in January

A “super PAC” supporting Mitt Romney blew through $14 million on a three-state advertising binge against his Republican rivals in January, according to campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

But the super PAC, Restore Our Future, also raised close to $7 million during the same month, and began February with more than $16 million in the bank, money that has helped pound Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum and may help restore momentum for Mr. Romney as the “Super Tuesday” round of Republican contests next month approaches.

Still, the heavy spending by Restore Our Future highlighted the difficult political terrain for Mr. Romney in January, when he lost the South Carolina primary to Newt Gingrich before pulling off a victory in Florida later in the month, helped in part by multimillion-dollar ad campaigns by the Romney campaign and the Super PAC.

While Restore Our Future took in donations as small as $5, close to $5 million raised by the super PAC came from just 25 individuals and corporations, each giving between $100,000 and $500,000.

Three individuals gave half a million dollars apiece: Joseph W. Craft, an Oklahoma mining executive; Bruce Kovner, a billionaire hedge fund founder from New York; and David Lisonbee, the founder of a Utah vitamin supplements company.

The group also received further donations from some past donors: Harold C. Simmons, a Texas billionaire who has already donated millions of dollars to Republican super PACs; members of the Marriott and Walton families, founders of the Marriott hotel and Wal-Mart chains, respectively; and Julian Robertson, a retired hedge fund manager.

Restore Our Future also received money from several corporations, some not easily connected to a specific executive or even business. Select Management Resources, a Georgia-based limited liability corporation, gave $100,000; the company appears to have registered to lobby on banking and credit card issues in Nebraska.

Another donor is RTTTA, LLC of Provo, Utah, where state records list the company’s registered agent as J. Todd Rawle, a Romney donor and an executive at a company that makes check-cashing and pay-day loan software

JTC Holdings, a California limited liability company registered by Justin Chang, a real estate executive at Los Angeles-based Colony Capital, gave two contributions totaling $20,000. Mr. Chang previous donated to Restore Our Future and to Mr. Romney under his own name.

View the original article here

The Caucus: Pro-Gingrich Group Raises Almost $11 Million in January

Newt Gingrich is getting by with a lot of help from his friends.

News and analysis on campaign fund-raising.

A “super PAC” backing Mr. Gingrich, Winning Our Future, reported raising close to $11 million in January, according to campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Monday. Most of that money came from just three people: Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire casino owner; his wife, Miriam Adelson; and Harold Simmons, a Texas industrialist and prominent Republican donor.

That money helped pay for ads that pummeled Mitt Romney over his record in the private equity business during the lead up to the South Carolina primary last month, setting up a major win for Mr. Gingrich. The group spent almost $10 million in January and ended the month with about $2.5 million in cash on hand.

In a twist, Mr. Simmons is also a major donor to Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mr. Romney, meaning that Mr. Simmons’s money was to some extent working against itself during the January run of Republican primaries.

View the original article here

Obama campaign, Democrats raise $29.1 million in January

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's re-election campaign and its Democratic allies raised a combined $29.1 million in January, accelerating the fundraising pace as the White House race draws closer.

The Obama campaign said 98 percent of its donations were $250 or less, signaling strength from core, small-time donors that his re-election team prizes.

Obama and Democrats supporting him raised more than $68 million in the final three months of last year, pushing the shared fundraising by his campaign and the Democratic National Committee to over $200 million for 2011.

A campaign spokesman said the January total included donations to the campaign, the DNC, and the joint fundraising committees, one shared with the DNC and the other with the state Democratic parties of several battleground states.

Federal Election Commission filings showed the campaign took in $11.84 million, including a $2.5 million transfer from the Obama Victory Fund, the joint fundraising group with the DNC.

The campaign reported roughly $76 million in cash on hand and debts of about $1 million for the period.

Despite the campaign's fundraising muscle, Obama officials have expressed concern about being outspent by Republicans in the 2012 election because of the influx of money to so-called Super PACS supporting Republican candidates.

Obama gave his blessing a few weeks ago to have White House and campaign officials appear at events for the Super PAC supporting his campaign, which was struggling to keep up with Republican counterparts. Those figures are not included in the campaign's fundraising totals.

Super PACs are political groups that can swiftly raise and spend unlimited amounts of money and influence a campaign by flooding the airwaves with political ads.

Obama is in the middle of a fundraising swing this week on the West Coast. He was expected to raise about $8 million at events in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.

(Additional reporting by Alex Cohen; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

View the original article here

Obama Raised $11.8 Million for Campaign in January

Mr. Obama remains the presidential race’s top fund-raiser: His total haul for the campaign so far is $151.4 million, slightly ahead of the pace he set in January 2008, during a hotly contested Democratic primary. He also raised $17.3 million in January for the Democratic National Committee.

But Mr. Obama’s January total was less than a third of the $36.8 million he raised during the same month four years ago. (He also spent a third as much this time around as in January 2008.) Over all, Mr. Obama, the leading Democratic super PACs, and the party’s three federal campaign committees raised at least $366.1 million in 2011, compared with the roughly $409 million raised by the Republican presidential candidates, the top Republican super PACs and the Republican Party’s campaign committees.

In a sign of the White House’s concern about Republican fund-raising, Mr. Obama reversed himself this month and instructed administration and campaign officials to aid in fund-raising for Priorities USA Action, a super PAC founded by two former aides. This week, Mr. Obama began a three-day fund-raising swing on the West Coast that was expected to yield more than $8 million, with events in Los Angeles and San Francisco, among other cities. Several other big fund-raisers are scheduled for early next month in New York.

The release of President Obama’s numbers are the starting gun for fund-raising in 2012, as the candidates for president begin filing monthly reports of their finances with the Federal Election Commission, along with those super PACs that have opted for monthly filing schedules in the election year. Formal filings are due by midnight on Monday.

Mr. Obama’s fund-raising for this re-election cycle has surpassed that of President George W. Bush, one of the Republican Party’s most prolific fund-raisers. At the same point in 2004 — as an incumbent facing re-election — Mr. Bush had taken in about $145.6 million for his campaign. With no primary to fight, Mr. Obama ended January with close to $76 million in cash on hand, far more than any of his Republican rivals are likely to report.

Mr. Obama has also exploited one of the perks of an incumbent president: the ability to raise checks for his party’s main campaign committee in amounts of up to $30,800 per donor per year, far more than the $5,000 his campaign can accept from each donor for the cycle.

The Democratic National Committee raised $117 million in 2011, ahead of the $105 million raised by the Republican National Committee, according to a study released on Friday by the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan research organization. The D.N.C.’s haul was more than the Republican National Committee raised in 2005 and 2003, when Mr. Bush was president.

More than a third of the D.N.C.’s donors in 2011 gave the committee more than $30,000, suggesting that Mr. Obama helped significantly buoy its fund-raising.

The Republican National Committee raised almost half of its money from donors giving $200 or less, compared with 27 percent for the Democratic National Committee, according to the study. That finding suggests that while Mr. Obama continues to raise significant amounts for his campaign from Democratic grass-roots donors, Republican grass-roots donors are turning to the Republican National Committee while the party’s presidential candidates duke it out in the primary.

View the original article here

Obama Heads West for 8 Star-Studded Fundraisers, $8 Million Haul

(Image Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo)

President Obama heads west today for a three-day, three-state swing aimed largely at filling the coffers of his re-election campaign and honing his message to supporters in key states.

Obama will headline eight fundraisers across California and Washington through Friday night. The events are expected to net at least $8.6 million for the Obama Victory Fund - a joint fundraising account for Obama and Democrats in the 2012 election.

On the way there, the president will stop in Milwaukee  for an official event at a Master Lock facility, where he will tout a resurgence in American manufacturing and his plan to keep up the momentum. He'll reprise the message at a Boeing factory in Everette, Wash., on Friday.

But much of Obama's focus will be on mingling with some of his wealthiest - and most famous - supporters in Los Angeles and San Francisco, who will play a key role in underwriting his bid for a second term.

Obama will appear with the Grammy Award-winning Foo Fighters at an outdoor  reception in Los Angeles this afternoon where 1,000 guests are expected. General admission tickets were $500 apiece, according to a campaign official.

Later he'll dine with 80 donors - each forking over $35,800 - at the home of Bradley Bell, a soap opera produer-writer whose wife, Colleen, is also an Obama bundler.  Actor and comedian Will Ferrell is  expected to attend.

On Thursday, Obama will lunch in Corona del Mar, Calif., at the home of real estate developer Jeff Stack. Tickers for each of the 125 guests start at $2,500, officials said.

The president then flies north to San Francisco, where he will attend three more fundraisers. Up  first is an intimate event at the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel with 20 supporters. Each paid $35,800 - the legal maximum combined donation to both the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Then, Obama dines with 70 supporters at the residence of novelist Robert Mailer Anderson and wife, Nicola Miner.  Tickets are again $35,800 apiece. (Singer Al Green will reportedly attend. No word on a possible Obama-Green duet.)

Obama will wrap his evening in San Francisco with a large crowd fundraiser at the Nob Hill Masonic Center with 2,500 guests who will pay $100 and up to attend. The event includes  a musical performance by Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, a campaign official said.

From San Francisco,  Obama heads up the coast to Washington state  Friday, where 65 guests will pay $17,900 each to attend a private lunch, and later, at a hotel in Bellevue, 450 guests will each pay $1,000 for a performance by Head and the Heart.

Also Read

View the original article here

The $1 Million Super PAC Donor's Club

An analysis by The Los Angeles Times has found that are 17 people or companies who gave more than $1 million to a super PAC last year, showing how just one wealthy individual can make a big impact on the election. A small handful of those donors gave in excess of $2 million, sometimes to more than one group or candidate.

RELATED: Pragmatist Obama Finds Idealism In Opposing His Own Super PACs

The end of January brought a massive data dump of Federal Election Commission filings that has given American a slightly clearer picture of how the 2012 election is being fought and paid for. Because super PACs are not bound by the limits that apply to individual donations made directly to candidates, those with the means are able to pump as much as they want to the group that may or not be behind their favorite candidate.

RELATED: In the Sport of Fundraising, This Is Who Colbert's Super PAC Beat

Everyone knows about Sheldon Adelson, who has so far donated $11 million to the pro-Newt Gingrich PAC "Winning our Future" (by far the most given by any single person. But there are others, like Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, who has given a total $8.6 million to several different groups. On the left, tther'es Jeffery Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul who has given $2 million to a PAC supporting Barack Obama.

RELATED: Zombie Super PACs: What Happens to the Money After a Candidate Drops Out

There are also the corporations, most of them private or non-profit, that are flooding the market this election season. However, even those donations are often the work of the wealthy person known to be running the company, or in some cases, an overt way to disguise the individual putting up the money. Disclosure laws require that the source of donations be revealed, but if the company is a private entity, it doesn''t have to say where it got its money in the first place. A story in The New York Times mentions a company that gave $250,000 to a Mitt Romney super PAC, despite not having a headquarters or any employees.

RELATED: D.C. Is Already Occupied

Those same laws have discourage big publicly traded companies from getting involved in with super PAC in an effort to avoid potential controversies. According to the LA Times, only one public traded company (Chesapeake Energy) donated to a super PAC last year. As a result, the new rules only magnify the influence of wealthy individuals like Adelson, Simmons and Katzenberg, whose political leanings are well-known and who don't care what people think about it. 

RELATED: How Super PACs Bury Democracy

Simmons, for example, gave $1.1 million to Perry's campaigns for governor of Texas, gave $3 million to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" in 2004, and paid $2.9 million ads about Barack Obama's relationship with William Ayres in 2008. He gave another $1.1 million to Perry's presidential super PAC, but also spread the money around to Newt Gingrich and other candidates. That suggest he's pushing an agenda not a candidate and that (given his $9.6 billion net worth) there will be a lot more where that came from before this election is over.

Photo via Rob DiCaterino (goodrob13) on Flickr

View the original article here