This morning, Romney told CNN that “I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine“. He has reason to know:
Close to 60 corporations and wealthy individuals gave checks of $100,000 or more to a “super PAC” supporting Mitt Romney in the months leading up to the Iowa caucuses, according to documents released on Tuesday, underwriting a $17 million blitz of advertising that has swamped his Republican rivals in the early primary states…
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Millions of dollars came from financial industry executives, including Mr. Romney’s former colleagues at Bain Capital, who contributed a total of $750,000; senior executives at Goldman Sachs, who contributed $385,000; and some of the most prominent and politically active Republicans in the hedge fund world, three of whom gave $1 million each: Robert Mercer of Renaissance Technologies; Paul Singer of Elliott Management, and Julian Robertson of Tiger Management.
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Harlan Crow, the Texas construction magnate, gave $300,000 personally and through his company. William Koch, whose brothers Charles and David are among the country’s most prominent backers of conservative causes, gave $1 million personally or through Oxbow Carbon, the energy company he founded. Members of the Walton family, founders of the Walmart chain, gave over $200,000, while Bob Perry — a wealthy home builder who has long been the top patron of Mr. Romney’s erstwhile rival, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas — chipped in $500,000 in early December…
… The filings also revealed how recent court decisions have opened new avenues for corporate contributions into campaign politics, and how narrow the gap has become between the candidates and the theoretically independent super PACs that are backing them.
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Four contributions of $250,000 to Mr. Romney’s super PAC came from affiliates of Melaleuca, an Idaho-based company that manufactures skin and nutritional products. The company’s president and chief executive, Frank VanderSloot, is a national finance co-chairman of the Romney campaign and a fellow graduate of Brigham Young University.
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Some of the group’s other donors have co-hosted fund-raisers for Mr. Romney’s presidential campaign, including William Koch; Lewis M. Eisenberg, an executive at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts; and Stephen Ross, a wealthy New York real estate executive. One of the Goldman executives who donated to Restore Our Future, Jim Donovan, is the same person who handles the Romney family’s considerable investments with the firm, which total as much as $36.7 million…
Shorter Romney: My cherished vampire-squid demographic has captured every other American asset worth counting; shouldn’t we be entitled to the prized CEO position in the Oval Office, as well?
PeakVT
FSM damn Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito, and Kennedy. And soon, please.
Boxer Beater
OT: The 50 Most Loathsome Americans 2011 is finally out.
El Tiburon
When is it we get to storm the Bastille? Shit ain’t funny no more.
Mr. Nice Guy OWS is awesome and shit and I’m not advocating rough stuff.
But this playing by the rules set up by the aristocracy is getting us no where fast. If we think any Democratic President in any of our lifetimes is going to change anything, or any Democratic Congress, we are as stupid as Fox News thinks we are.
And if the NSA is reading this: Prank call Prank call
redshirt
VICOTRY!
freelancer
Was there video of this? Cause it’s gonna go really well, juxtapositioned with this clip followed by the AP quote:
This ad already exists somewhere, I’m sure of it.
cmorenc
The real long-term problem Romney’s big-bux donor list illustrates is that we’ve arrived at a moment when it will be impossible to successfully mount a campaign for the Presidency without assembling a large stable of mega-bucks donors, each in the 100k to 1 million and up category. Gingrich could not have sustained a successful challenge either, even in as friendly to him as South Carolina, absent a 5 million donation from Adelson. In truth, Obama’s defense of his Presidency for a second term would be immensely weakened, even as an incumbent, without his large stable of mega-bucks donors. The same dynamic applies on a smaller scale with US Senate candidates, though the amounts involved are still enormous by the standards of the overwhelmingly vast number of regular citizens.
Willard was able to catch up to and swamp Gingrich in Florida not simply because Florida has less favorable political demographics for Gingrich than Florida or there’s potential reason for GOP voters to be concerned about Gingrich’s electability in the general election, but in huge part because Willard was simply able to drown Gingrich with an overwhelming ocean of cash to carpet-bomb Gingrich with negative campaigning. Huge-scale money can’t buy political office, particularly matched against enough other money to achieve parity (witness Perry, Rick), but it has become a prerequisite ante without which a serious candidacy quickly becomes untenable.
Elizabeth Warren will hopefully prove an exception, but unfortunately it will still be all too infrequent an exception
J. Michael Neal
@El Tiburon: The laws of war have always been designed to support the status quo, ever since the ancient Greeks declared that the only way to be a lawful combatant was to wear a really expensive set of armor that you bought yourself. Though, that had the amusing side effect of wrecking Sparta when they concentrated wealth to the point that there weren’t enough citizens who could afford to be soldiers.
Mostly OT: I’ve restarted my blog, shooting for one post a day. Anything beyond that is a bonus. Nothing political so far this round.
PeakVT
@Boxer Beater: That should give conservative fits, except for #6, which has a Politifacty feel to it. None of my least favorite justices made the list, though. The competition is tough these days.
barath
Remember when Citigroup put out its Plutonomy report in 2006, basically admitting to the fact that the rich and powerful are who the economic system caters to and will continue to cater to?
I’ve been wondering if there’s a distributed way of responding. In other words, completing this analogy:
??? is to the financial sector as P2P file sharing is to the RIAA/MPAA
What do you think might serve a similar role?
For a while I was thinking sort of distributed microlending / peer-to-peer localized barter made easy. But I don’t know if that’d make much of a dent. Seems we’d need something with more oomph.
trollhattan
@cmorenc:
Am hoping for a Whitman outcome–where Mittens and his funders waste vast oceans of money to no avail and a landslide occurs back upon them. Not ready to bet on this, however.
redshirt
Clearly, these Fat Cats are correct in some regard about creating jobs – think of all the campaign staff and political operatives that are now employed, due to the largess of our Galtian Overlords.
pragmatism
here i was thinking that the superpac was just aggregating money from middle classers who are hedging their bet that they win the lottery in the next 4 years and get to keep more of it. you’re saying it’s rich people? wow.
jacy
@J. Michael Neal:
Yay for more blogging! I know it’s hard. I’ve been trying for a post a week and falling short. I’m either writing writing or tweeting instead. Just take it one post at a time. :)
Linnaeus
Aux armes, citoyens!*
*Symbolically, at least, before it becomes literal.
J. Michael Neal
@jacy: I owe you an email. I’ll get to that, I promise.
Kirbster
So, the big difference is that Mitt’s backers want to remove every last obstacle to taking all the money before they voluntarily decamp to to their luxuriously appointed private fortresses in the countryside, and Obama’s backers are willing to keep the middle class around for a while to act as a buffer against a revolution that would force them to decamp to to their luxuriously appointed private fortresses in the countryside?
Marc
I was hoping some of the emoprogs and Naderites would read that and remember it the next time they claim Obama is just as much a pawn of Wall Street as Romney.
Didn’t even make it to comment #16.
capt
I cannot get the visual of Mitt wearing a top hat and monocle out of my head.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@trollhattan:
I think it’s almost inevitable with Romney. Whitman didn’t have the silver foot in mouth problem like Romney does.
Egg Berry
@capt: Photoshop can arrange that.
jacy
@J. Michael Neal:
No, rush — I apparently just spent a couple weeks with a migraine, or so I’m told. Never had one before, and it’s all kind of hazy. Best thing about a sustained migraine? When it’s gone, the absence of agony feels amazingly good!
Nellcote
An observation from McCain’s oppo research book on Romney, “he sees the presidency as a market to exploit”, seems pretty perceptive.
Willard
Obama has faced a near constant barrage of negative political ads since his inauguration, voters are probably at or near the saturation point. It’s not like voters will suddenly realize he’s black.
Romney, however, does seem to be vulnerable to negative advertising. A 13% tax rate? Born on Easy Street? Supported SB5? Against the Auto Industry bailout? Cruel to animals? Invented Obamacare? Etc etc.
Schlemizel
It is being reported (by two of the bots boys) that Willard’s pup may have decided to defect to Canada after his vacation trip:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/updates/4981?ref=fpblg
I love that this story has legs
Ken
You know, those millions of $$$ at the PAC-a-paloozas could sure underwrite a fucking lot of soup kitchens and shelters. You know, something worthwhile.
Triassic Sands
Let’s face it, the only thing Romney cares about is Romney.
He’s sickening.
Mark
Poor schmoor, what really matters is that if Mitt was elected he’d dis-lodge JFK as the best looking president of all time. If he just grew a beard even Sully would support him.