This Week in Dark Money

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

the money shot

Ā 

Quote of the week

“This is a nightmare for me.”
ā€”Former Rick Santorum booster Foster Friess, speaking to MoJo‘s Tim Murphy at the Republican National Convention in Tampa about the attention heaped on GOP megadonors. “It’s too many things going on. I’ve got like four things to go to. It’s just so frustrating,” he continued. “I’ve had enough speeches!” Friess was just one of several deep-pocketed donors in Tampa. Miriam Adelson, wife of casino magnate Sheldon and a megadonor herself, gave a policy talk. Direct-marketing CEOĀ Frank VanderSloot and his wife met privately with Karl Rove; hedge-fund manager Paul Singer also organized a private meeting with Rove. And David Kochdiscussed saving America” with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

Ā 

attack ad of the week

American Bridge 21st Century, the liberal super-PACĀ launched by Media Matters founder David Brock, preempted Thursday night convention speeches by Mitt Romney and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) with a web ad pitting Rubio’s words against Romney. “For almost all of history, almost everyone was poor,” Rubio says. “Only a few people had power and wealth and prosperity.” Then, as the video displays quotes critical of the low tax rate Romney has paid, Rubio continues:Ā “And so the people with all the power, the big corporations, the multi-billonaires, they used their influence to get the rules written to their advantage.”

Ā 

stat of the week

$450,000: The amount that Florida developer Gary Morse has given to the pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future. Morse owns the Cracker Bay, the unfortunately named yacht Romney bundlers partied on in Tampa. The ship flies the flag of the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven that Romney’s not too eager to associate himself with. Other bundlers at the bash included Romney’s national finance chairman Ron Weiser, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, and real estate developer Bob Pence, who’s given Restore Our Future $350,000. (Unlike Obama, Romney has not disclosed the names of all his bundlers.)

Ā 

chart of the week

Here’s more evidence of the influence of dark money in the wake of Citizens United: Spending by outside groups has skyrocketed in the 2012 election, tripling the pace set in 2008. The Center for Responsive Politics has it charted:


Ā 

more mojo dark-money coverage

ā€¢ Barack Obama Comes Out in Favor of an anti-Citizens United Amendment on Reddit.
ā€¢ “Cracker Bay,” Team Romney’s Big-Money Party Yacht: Choose where you party carefully, future presidential nominees.
ā€¢ GOP Platform Calls for Nuking What’s Left of McCain-Feingold Law: The platform will also oppose passage of new disclosure laws unmasking big donors to dark-money groups.
ā€¢ Bizarre Super-PAC Targets Liberal Icon RaĆŗl Grijalva…and Sheriff Joe: “I know I will make enemies but our country needs an ass-kicking,” says the operative attacking Rep. Grijalva (D-Ariz.).

Ā 

more must-reads

ā€¢ Campaign finance reform groups try to shed light on the dark-money dealings at the RNC. Politico
ā€¢ A look at how “big business is buying the election.” The Nation
ā€¢ The anti-tax Club for Growth’s dark-money machine’s latest victory:Ā Helping Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to a Senate primary win. Center for Public Integrity
ā€¢ Rep. Flake is just the latest of several candidates who have won primaries despite being outspent. Politico
ā€¢ The Sunlight Foundation has a new app for the iPhone and Android to help viewers debunk attack ads. New Scientist

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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 wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”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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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 canā€™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 wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”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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