This Week in Dark Money

A quick look at the week that was in the world of political dark money

the money shot

Total raised by super-PACs (so far): $218 million
Ratio of spending by conservative super-PACs to liberal super-PACs: 7.7 to 1
Total raised by Barack Obama: $217.1 million
Total raised by Mitt Romney: $97.9 million
Total raised by congressional candidates: $639.4 million
Total raised by state candidates: $378.6 million
Sources: Center for Responsive Politics, National Institute for Money in State Politics

quote of the week

“This idea of giving public beatings has been around for a long time…You go back to the Dark Ages when they put these people in the stocks or whatever they did, or publicly humiliated them as a deterrent to everybody else—watch this—watch what we do to the guy who did this.”
—Frank VanderSloot, CEO of the direct-marketing company Melaleuca, speaking to Politico about the public humilation of being a Romney megadonor.

stat of the week

$1 billion: How much conservative outside groups plan to spend on the 2012 race for the White House, Politico reports. That includes $400 million from organizations connected to the Koch brothers’ dark-money efforts.

race of the week

David Dewhurst v. Ted Cruz: Outside groups spent more than $6.4 million ahead of Tuesday’s Republican Senate primary between Texas Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and tea partier/former state Solicitor General Cruz. Neither managed to snag more than 50 percent of the vote, so they’re headed to a July runoff—and probably a fresh influx of super-PAC cash.

attack ads of the week

A couple of new attack ads released Tuesday by the Romney campaign and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads super-PAC lobbed remarkably similar criticisms at Obama’s investments in energy companies like Solyndra. The Obama campaign and the pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA have also aired curiously overlapping ads. It’s illegal for candidates and super-PACs to coordinate their messages, but even if they did, the fines would likely be negligible, and the Federal Election Commission can’t even agree on what exactly defines “coordination.”

Here’s the Romney ad:

And American Crossroads’:

more mojo dark money coverage

• Half of Scott Walker’s Cash Comes From Out-of-State Dark-Money Donors: GOP heavyweights pour millions into “ground zero for the battle against Obama’s liberal agenda.”
• Our Nation’s Biggest Money Problem of All: There appears to be no stopping the tidal wave of money that’s overtaken our political system.
Bye, Bye Buddy: Ex-Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer is dropping out of the presidential race. A look at the political and personal demons that fueled his feisty campaign.
No Disclosure, Please, We’re Contractors: A new bill would make it harder to find out about federal contractors’ dark-money donations.

more must-reads

• Mystery millions: The source of $55 million doled out by a Koch-connected dark-money group remains unknown. Los Angeles Times
• Then: Obama calls super-PAC donors “threat to democracy.” Now: Super-PAC donors mingle at the White House. Sunlight Foundation
• Mitt Romney’s billionaire donors expect a big return on their investments. Rolling Stone
• What does John Edwards’ not guilty verdict mean for the future of campaign finance? Christian Science Monitor

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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