Special interests, SuperPACS, and the presidential candidates

photo credit: natcom.org

The OpenSecrets website lists contributors to candidates, and also tracks the SuperPACS:

Super PACs are a relatively new type of committee that arose following the July 2010 federal court decision in a case known as SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission.

Technically known as independent expenditure-only committees, super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates, and their spending must not be coordinated with that of the candidates they benefit. Super PACs are required to report their donors to the Federal Election Commission on a monthly or semiannual basis – the super PAC's choice – in off-years, and monthly in the year of an election.

As of February 03, 2016, 2,194 groups organized as super PACs have reported total receipts of $353,533,929 and total independent expenditures of $144,551,790 in the 2016 cycle.

The website further reports that

Super PACs allowed the [securities and investment] industry to gain an outsize share of the pie in 2015 as Wall Street gravitated to some candidates and utterly abandoned others. With billionaire investors giving right and left, total contributions from the industry to presidential super PACs rose to $81.2 million.

. . .

Investors made up the top donor industry to six of the current candidates when their campaign committees and super PACs are combined; the exceptions were retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, businesswoman Carly Fiorina, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

All four of those candidates nevertheless benefit from SuperPACS, including those receiving Wall Street money. Recently, the securities and investment industry donors are shifting to new favorites:

Despite huge contributions to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the first six months of 2015, securities and investment firms appear to have picked their favorite candidate on the Republican side: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

. . .

despite Rubio’s rise among securities and investment types, Iowa caucus winner Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) again showed evidence he has perhaps the strongest mix of funding sources in the race. Four of the top overall industries giving money were in the top five donors to Cruz super PACs and his campaign account: securities and investment, real estate (buoyed by huge contributions from the Texan Wilks brothers), oil and gas and retired individuals.

The leading five candidates in the GOP race, as of today via Real Clear Politics, are Bush, Carson, Cruz, Rubio, and Trump. (And as most patriots know, Rick Santorum,  Rand Paul, and Mike Huckabee  just suspended their campaigns.)

# # #

Cleveland Tea Party Patriots does not endorse Ted Cruz

Photo credit: democracychronicles.com

Cleveland Tea Party Patriots does not endorse Ted Cruz

Jenny-Beth Martin sent out a message from Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund with the following:

After four rounds of national voting, the supporters and activists of Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund have spoken. And they have decided to endorse Ted Cruz for President.

. . . [fund-raising pitch] . . .

Our mission now is to harness all the might and fury of the Tea Party movement to build a massive grassroots operation for Senator Cruz.

Unlike the TPP Citizens Fund,  Cleveland Tea Party Patriots does not endorse candidates. When we tabulate report cards on candidates based on positions related to the three core values of Tea Party Patriots, we leave it to the voter to decide for him/herself who to support.

In this case, Cleveland Tea Party Patriots emphatically rejects the above mandate that dictates that all Tea Party Patriots support Ted Cruz. What about patriots who support other candidates, whether, e.g., Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, or Donald Trump?

In particular, Cleveland Tea Party Patriots is dismayed with the endorsement of Ted Cruz for several reasons, including Cruz’s decisions and actions within the Republican Establishment (GOPe). Not too long ago, when Glenn Beck withdrew his support from Sen. Rand Paul and transferred that support to Sen. Ted Cruz [via Conservative Treehouse]:

Beck claims he became disgusted with the Senator [Paul] when he made a deal with Mitch McConnell. 

. . .

The deal was to go along with Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell’s overall objectives, electoral objectives AND legislative objectives, as the GOP entered into the 2014 mid-term election cycle.

. . . [BUT]

Both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz agreed to stay out of the mid-term elections for incumbents at the request of Mitch McConnell.

Remember, this agreement is the set up to the Mississippi fiasco of 2014 with Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel.  The agreement gave both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz leadership approvals for their 2016 presidential race.

. . .

Remember the 2014 Mississippi Primary Fraud?

Here’s is a video/audio [Mark Levin on the radio] you must ABSOLUTELY listen to, in order to understand what’s going on today – AND – how radio host Mark Levin has been covering for Senator Ted Cruz for more than just a couple of months.

. . .

Senator Cruz states the campaign conduct in the Mississippi runoff was “incredibly disappointing” etc. and even goes on to say an investigation is warranted.

Eventually, [Sundance at Conservative Treehouse] found out who paid for those racist attack ads [against McDaniel], and who paid for the phone calls, and who paid for the Democrats to come out and support Thad Cochran in the Mississippi primary runoff.

. . .

It was the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).

. . .

The NRSC, the actual Republican Party itself, was funding racist attack ads against its own party candidate, Chris McDaniel, in the runoff primary race.

Who was the Vice Chairman of the NRSC for Grassroots Outreach? TED CRUZ. Links galore to the videos of TV interviews, the FEC filing documents, and so on are here.

Treehouse predicted that Cruz would lose the Iowa caucus. As we all know, Cruz won. Treehouse’s prediction notwithstanding, the information on the blogsite is documented and linked. Check out the video and audio clips in particular.

For a previous CTPP blogpost on funding sources for Cruz’s campaign, go here.

# # #

GOP campaign financing: Part 6

Photo credit: irishmirror.ie

GOP campaign financing: Part 6 ~ Donald J. Trump

The donors to Trump’s campaign are unlike those backing any other presidential candidate -- of either party. Trump is financing his own campaign. He’s accepting small contributions from individuals, selling hats and other merchandise online, but he is not accepting corporate gifts, he has insisted that no SuperPACS use his name, and he does not accept funding through SuperPACS. Smaller business contributions are listed here.

And nobody knows the racket between corporations and politicians better than Trump. He has used the system for years. Trump has talked about his past business practice of contributing to politicians in both parties to gain access. 

On the other hand, he is pandering like a politician when he supports ethanol subsidies to win the Iowa caucus.    

But there is one indicator that the hedge funds/SuperPACS/Wall Street/CoC donor class is concerned. According to the Wall Street Journal, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donahue, is worried about a Trump victory:

The head of the nation’s biggest business lobby inveighed against presidential candidates singling out immigrants, ethnic or religious groups, highlighting divisions among supporters of the Republican establishment and the party’s leading candidate Donald Trump.

“There are the voices, sometimes very loud voices, who talk about walling off America from talent and trade and who are attacking whole groups of people based not on their conduct but on their ethnicity or religion,” Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a speech on Thursday. “This is morally wrong and politically stupid.”

When asked if the comments were specifically about Mr. Trump, Mr. Donohue said they applied to any one of the candidates from the right who “stepped over the boundary” on issues such as immigration and trade.

“They lost track of who we are and what we stand for and how we fix this economy,” he said.

But the remarks closely echo similar comments from South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and other Republicans who have pushed back against of Mr. Trump’s policy prescriptions on immigration and security.

In other words, the CoC is worried that they will not be able to influence Trump. Compare that with the latest exposé on Conservative Treehouse reporting on the SuperPAC money going into anti-Trump ads (and pro-Cruz ads) in Iowa.

It’s always the same: Follow the money. So far with Trump, it’s the ethanol subsidies.

For background on Chris Christie’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

For background on Dr. Ben Carson’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

For background on Jeb Bush’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

For background on Marco Rubio’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

For background on Ted Cruz’z fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

# # #

Growing Coalition of Ohio Citizen Groups Oppose Online Voter Registration

 

 

From The Ohio Christian Alliance--



 

A Coalition of Citizens Groups

Opposes Online Voter Registration, S.B. 63

January 24, 2016


Dear Legislator:

S.B. 63, the online voter registration bill, has raised concerns that it may further threaten Ohio's voter integrity. Ohio's elections process has been under some scrutiny over the last several years due to an increase in reported voter fraud cases, specifically (SOS Post-Election Voter Fraud Report May 2013) (SOS Report December 2013 Non-U.S. Citizens Register and Vote in the Battleground State of Ohio). Franklin County reported more than ninety cases of double voting in the 2012 Presidential Election as reported in the Columbus Dispatch in June of 2013.

In addition, nineteen indictments were handed down in Hamilton County. A state-wide citizens' audit of Ohio county BOE's conducted in the aftermath of the 2012 Presidential Election also indicated a number of irregularities and suspicious activity through eyewitness accounts. What is clear in these reports is that voter fraud is a growing problem in the battleground State of Ohio, and more measures need to be enacted to get out in front of the problem. Although some legislative election reform measures have been passed addressing some of the concerns, more work needs to be done. Ohio is a must-win state for the campaigns, and there are those who would seek an advantage by trying to game the system.

To open online voter registration at this time would be ill-advised. There are a number of questions and concerns regarding the security of the online access and process of voter registration that S.B. 63 proposes. What the general public has learned over the last two years is that no website is secure from hackers.

When the secure websites of The Pentagon, The White House and other government agencies have been hacked, then the suggestion that this website will be safe is purely conjecture and wishful thinking. The list is long of major corporate websites that assured their users their websites were secure, yet have been victimized by the hacker and information contained therein disseminated. The list of victims reported by the media is long indeed, including the industries of banking, entertainment, major retailers, and others. They have all had their websites hacked and information stolen.

When it comes to the value of the voting process in our Republic, we need to proceed with extreme caution before the suggestion of online voter registration is seriously considered.This is no time for a cavalier attitude concerning the voter integrity process in Ohio.

At a minimum, implementation of any such legislative proposal should be delayed until 2017, and a trial run should be conducted to assure that the security of the website can be verified before full implementation.

The following groups oppose S.B. 63 in its current form.

Sincerely,

Christopher Long, President, Ohio Christian Alliance

Jeff Malek, Medina County Conservative Coalition

Ralph King, State Coordinator, Tea Party Patriots

George Momirov, Columbus 9.12

Tom Zawistowski, Portage County TEA Party

Cody Ragle, The Coalition

Lisa Woods, MCFAN (Medina County Friends and Neighbors)

Chuck Laughlin, Geauga County TEA Party

Arzella Melnyk, Grassroots Rally Team of Ohio

Linda Barry, Auglaize County Patriots

Steve Salvi, Ohio Jobs & Justice PAC

Ohio Christian Alliance is a non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting Judeo-Christian values in American government. Ohio Christian Alliance does not endorse any particular candidate or political party. OCA provides educational materials, including voter guides and scorecards.

GOP debate link

Art credit: WashingtonPost.com

The GOP debate this evening at 9pm is hosted by Fox Business Channel. Here's the website link to watch either a live stream online or on cable. For those who subscribe to a cable provider, just type in your zipcode at the link for options.

# # #

GOP campaign financing: Part 5

Photo credit: Politico.com

GOP campaign financing: Part 5 ~ Ted Cruz

Senator Ted Cruz is running as an outsider presidential candidate, and he appeals to conservatives. He missed the SOTU speech last night because he was in New Hampshire campaigning. He referred to the SOTU as the State of Denial Address, a view probably shared by most Tea Party Patriots. A number of Ohio conservative activists already support or have endorsed his candidacy. Where do Cruz's campaign funds come from?

The Federal Election Committee report (click on the candidate’s name on the linked page) shows that almost all of the $26 million that he has raised comes from individuals. But is that the end of the story?

The FEC page for Jeb! Bush shows that the lion’s share of his $24 million comes from individuals. Yet we already know that Jeb! has received over $100 million from funds contributed toSuperPACS. Those funds aren't showing up on the FEC page for Jeb!

So are any SuperPACs funding Cruz’s campaign? Yes. Club for Growth, as reported by CNN: 

Cruz is a natural fit for the group, which is unafraid to battle in Republican primaries. One of the main donors to the Club for Growth's super PAC, New York hedge funder Bob Mercer, gave $11 million to start his own super PAC backing Cruz, Keep the Promise I.    

Sundance at Conservative Treehousealso reported on the relationship between Mercer, the SuperPAC, and Breitbart Media Group: 

The Breitbart Media Group is financially backed and funded by Hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer. Mercer was/is the originating financial backer for the Ted Cruz “Keep the Promise” (KtP 1, KtP2 and KtP3) Super-PACs.  Mercer is also the financial backing behind Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica is the receiver of the contact information provided to Breitbart when you participate in their on-line Presidential Poll.

In essence, when you participate [in] the Breitbart poll, you are sending your personal information into a data-base controlled by the proprietary interests of Robert Mercer, Cambridge Analytica. The Ted Cruz campaign then uses the data collected to fund-raise on behalf of the Campaign.

There are more links in that report; just scroll down. Breitbart is an excellent resource for news, opinion, and analysis. But like most media, including alternative media, it can be influenced by major financial backers.

For background on Chris Christie’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

For background on Dr. Ben Carson’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

For background on Jeb Bush’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

For background on Marco Rubio’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite, go here.

# # #

Stop the Push for On-Line Voter Registration in Ohio!

Action Alert by Medina Tea Party Patriots

January 10, 2016

 

Online voting being pushed in committee

 

The Government Accountability and Oversight Committee plans to hold its first hearing on the proposed online voter registration system this Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. This same committee refuses to hear testimony on House Bill 189, the Ohio’s Voter Photo ID Law. It’s interesting that the predominantly Republican committee is pushing forward on legislation that does nothing to prevent fraudulent voting and may even add to the problem, but won’t consider legislation that will help reduce fraud.

 

We need your help! Ohio’s Secretary of State, Jon Husted, wants online voting rushed through committee and passed through the legislature. Please contact the committee members on Monday and ask why they are pushing online voting in our state but refusing to push requiring photo IDs when voting.

 

Members of Government Accountability and Oversight Committee

Representative Tim W. Brown (Committee Chairman) – R
District 3
Phone (614) 466-8104
Fax (614) 719-0006 Email Representative Brown

 

Representative Louis W. Blessing III (Committee Vice Chairman) – R
District 29
Phone (614) 466-9091
Fax (614) 719-3583 Email Representative Blessing

 

Representative Kathleen Clyde – D
District 75
Phone (614) 466-2004
Fax (614) 719-3968 Email Representative Clyde

 

Representative Jim Buchy – R
District 84
Phone (614) 466-6344
Fax (614) 719-3977 Email Representative Buchy

 

Representative Jim Butler – R
District 41

Phone (614) 644-6008
Fax (614) 719-3591 Email Representative Butler

 

Representative Michael F. Curtin – D
District 17
Phone (614) 644-6005
Fax (614) 719-6963 Email Representative Curtin

 

Representative Timothy Derickson – R
District 53

Phone (614) 644-5094
Fax (614) 719-6953 Email Representative Derickson

 

Representative Doug Green – R
District 66

Phone (614) 644-6034
Fax (614) 719-6988 Email Representative Green

 

Representative David Leland – D
District 22

Phone (614) 466-2473
Fax (614) 719-6961 Email Representative Leland

 

Representative Robert McColley – R
District 81

Phone (614) 466-3760
Fax (614) 719-3975 Email Representative McColley

 

Representative Dorothy Pelanda – R
District 86

Phone (614) 466-8147
Fax (614) 719-6983 Email Representative Pelanda

 

Representative Ryan Smith – R
District 93

Phone (614) 466-1366
Fax (614) 719-6987 Email Representative Smith