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.

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GOP campaign financing: Part 1

GOP campaign financing: Part 1 ~ Chris Christie

photo credit: blogs.wsj.com

ConservativeTreehouse concludes that the January GOP debate will narrow the field to six: Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Bush, and Christie.  As that number is considerably more manageable, we can start to look more closely at the candidates' campaign funding sources. Starting with Christie, from the factivist blog, a September 2014 New York Times article

featured a story about Chris Christie’s continued refusal to include New Jersey in a regional anti-climate change partnership that New Jersey itself helped found in 2005. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a multi-state entity that seeks to reduce emissions in partner states to mitigate the damage of climate change. New Jersey’s legislature has voted twice for the state to rejoin RGGI, and Christie has vetoed that legislation both times – despite evidence that leaving the partnership has cost New Jersey more than $100 million.

Why?

Because the Big Money donors like the Koch Brothers that bankrolled his efforts – and he hopes will bankroll his presidential campaign – wanted him to.

Since then, OpenSecrets  identifies the America Leads PAC as Christie’s biggest source of funds, over $11 million to date. What is the America Leads PAC?

Open Secrets has a list of all the major PACS here. Most of the names sound generic or innocuous, so one has to dig a bit more. Fortunately, several major bloggers have been doing just that, and here’s what we know from a Politico blog about America Leads PAC: 

Donors to the America Leads PAC, which raised $11 million,  were disclosed for the first time Friday. Among them were several billionaires and several companies with million of dollars in state contracts would have been barred from giving to Christie’s gubernatorial campaigns. 

Winecup-Gamble Inc., a Nevada ranch owned by former Reebok CEO Paul Fireman, gave the group $1 million. Fireman, who lives outside Boston, plans a massive, $4.6 billion casino in Jersey City if state voters approve a constitutional amendment to allow gambling outside of Atlantic City. 

Christie said in May that he favors letting voters decide whether to allow gambling outside of Atlantic City, after he had previously opposed allowing it. Fireman, who with his family has begun making donations to many New Jersey candidates, made the donation to America Leads on June 25.

Las Vegas casino mogul Stephen Wynn, who is not currently involved in the New Jersey gambling industry, gave $25,000.

Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen and his wife Alexandra were the super PAC's biggest backers, giving a combined $2 million.

Another major donor was Quicken Loans chairman Daniel Gilbert, who gave $750,000.

Home Depot founder Ken Langone, who has been one of Christie’s biggest backers, gave $250,000, and Anheuser-Busch heir August Busch gave $100,000.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman chipped in $100,000. So did Christie’s brother Todd.

Wrestling mogul Linda McMahon, who ran twice for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut, donated $250,000.

George Harms Construction, which in 2014 had more than $100 million in contracts with several state agencies, gave $25,000. Ferreira Construction, which made more than $34 million from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority in 2014, gave $100,000.

Public Service Enterprise Group, which as a regulated utility also would have been barred from giving to Christie’s gubernatorial campaign, gave $250,000.

The link to the FEC source, hyperlinked above, is here. 

Christie has almost no chance of becoming the presidential candidate. According to Conservative Treehouse, his role in the primary campaign is the same as the many of the remaining candidates in the GOPe field (such as Fiorina, Huckabee, Kasich, Rubio) each of whose role is to split GOP primary votes in particular states to lead to a Jeb! nomination.

To be continued…