The most recent filing by Restore Our Future, the technically independent group supporting the candidacy of Mitt Romney, revealed a number of firms—a for-profit school, several payday lenders, and a chemical company–whose …
Campaign Finance
How an Obama-Romney Election Battle Would Pit Small Donors Against Large
The 2012 election is, in many ways, shaping up to be a contest defined by financial disparity. The rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street movement, predicated on the idea of an existential struggle between the 99% and the 1%, has …
Barack Obama’s New One-Click Fundraising Trick
Campaign reporters have blind spots. I can tell you, for instance, what happens when you go on BarackObama.com, or what happens when you sign up for the Barack Obama Facebook app, or what happens when you tell the campaign you want to donate money online. I cannot, however, tell you what happens after you donate the money online, since I …
The Campaign Spendageddon That Already Happened
Consider this campaign finance reformer’s nightmare scenario: Corporate interests flood a presidential election with money, ballooning campaign spending at six times the norm, and throwing a 5-to-1 spending advantage to the eventual winner largely because of one issue. This is not what’s happening in 2012. It’s what transpired in 1896:
Campaign 2012, Where Old Media Is New Again
We live in the age of the iPhone, yet the 2012 presidential campaign has so far been run on Betamax. In the Republican primary, new media and mobile technologies are next to incidental, subsumed by a nostalgic embrace of a technology that was cutting edge in the 1960s: television.
Among Romney Super PAC’s Corporate Donors, Big Names Not All Easy to Spot
Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy, raised $7 million in January, topping off its deep reservoir of funds and allowing the group to flood media markets from Sioux City to Sarasota …
Super PACs, the Great Democratizers
Following a now familiar pattern in the GOP nominating contest, Rick Santorum’s Feb. 7 hat trick and sudden surge in the Michigan primary polls have motivated Mitt Romney’s ad men. Restore Out Future, the Romney-backing super PAC, has bought more than $800,000 of TV time in Michigan, slathering local broadcasts with the same caustic goo …
Major Political Donors Enriched by Facebook’s IPO
With social network giant Facebook officially gearing up for its initial public offering, the company’s top executives and largest investors are poised for a historic windfall. But far from Silicon Valley or Wall Street, there is …
What Sheldon Adelson’s Gingrich Gifts Say About Money in Politics
Thursday’s Boston Globe explains how the pro-Newt Gingrich forces have suddenly leveled the advertising playing field in Florida, where Mitt Romney’s camp has been spending big for weeks. That of course is largely thanks to Gingrich’s patron saint, the billionaire Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who has just written his second $5 …
Can a Bipartisan Pact Really Disarm the Super PAC Arsenal in Massachusetts?
From its start, the race for Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat seemed destined to be one of most expensive political battles in Massachusetts history. Challenger Elizabeth Warren, bank-scolding darling of the left, and Scott Brown, …
Stephen Colbert vs. the Supreme Court: Testing the Limits of Super-PAC Coordination
Stephen Colbert is laughing at the U.S. Supreme Court. He started Thursday night on his show, when he transferred control of his super PAC to his mentor, business partner and friend Jon Stewart. Here is the clip:
It’s a …
What Ad Spending Says About Each GOP Candidate–and Their Success
Restore Our Future, the super PAC backing Mitt Romney, has spent $8.9 million on the 2012 Republican presidential primary, more money than any other group. Throughout the fall it held its fire, even as Ron Paul pumped money into …
Obama’s Donor Base: Still Robust
President Obama’s re-election campaign reported Tuesday that it raised $42.8 million in the last three months. That’s a big number. He’ll no doubt need every dollar he can get with post-Citizens United campaign finance laws …
