Rove Backed Group Raises $2 Million
Kenneth P. Vogel reports that a fundraising organization with backing from Karl Rove has managed to raise $2 million:
A political outfit conceived by Republican operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie pulled in more than $2 million from deep-pocketed conservatives and corporations last month, and this week spent $454, a href="http://viagragenericedpills.net/" style="text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c">tadalafil< 000 on ads supporting Republican Rob Portman’s Ohio Senate campaign, according to financial reports filed recently with the Federal Election Commission.
The reports show that the group, a political action committee called American Crossroads, accepted $1 million each from the trust of former Univision chairman Jerry Perenchio and from an agricultural interest controlled in part by Texas billionaire Harold Simmons.
But the FEC reports reveal only half of the effort being waged under the American Crossroads umbrella, which includes the Crossroads PAC and a newer, stealthier group called American Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, or GPS.
Together they have raised $17.6 million through mid-August, spokesman Jonathan Collegio told the Associated Press, though he wouldn’t answer when asked by POLITICO how much was raised by each group.
While reports filed with the FEC and the Internal Revenue Service show that American Crossroads has raised a total of about $6.7 million between its late March creation and the end of July, American Crossroads GPS is not required to regularly report its finances – and won’t be required to reveal its donors at all. That’s because – unlike the original Crossroads, which was initially registered under Section 527 of the IRS code and this month changed its registration to become a PAC – GPS is registered under section 501(c)4 of the IRS code, which allows donors anonymity, but also restricts the aggressiveness of the group’s ads.
Nonetheless, Crossroads GPS announced on Friday that it had launched more than $2 million worth of so-called issue ads criticizing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Missouri democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan during their campaigns.
