August 24, 2012

This Week in Dark Money

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

the money shot

quote of the week

“He’s not going to get grassroots support from individuals; I don’t think he’ll get organized support by the party or 501(c)(4)s and I don’t know how you survive without that kind of support.”
—Republican operative Bradley Blakeman, expressing skepticism about Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-Mo.) chances at unseating Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill after his comment that victims of “legitimate rape” aren’t likely to become pregnant. Groups including Karl Rove’s dark-money Crossroads GPS have pulled their ads from the race (for now).

 

attack ad of the week

The liberal nonprofit Patriot Majority USA dropped $500,000 on an ad campaign targeting Charles and David Koch for attempting to “buy this year’s elections and advance their agenda.” But two can play the dark-money game: The web of groups collectively referred to as Patriot Majority has disclosed its mostly union and Democratic bigwig donors since 2006, but Patriot Majority USA doesn’t plan to.

 

stat of the week

7 percent: The amount of television stations’ revenues that may come from political ads, thanks to super-PACs and nonprofit groups, according to Moody’s. TV stations are required to give discounted rates to campaigns, but those rules don’t apply for outside spending groups. “It’s like Christmas in September for broadcasters. And October,” David Keating, head of the pro-Citizens United group Center for Competitive Politics, told Politico.

 

chart of the week

Between 2011 and this July, conservative super-PACs have spent $137.1 million, four times the $33.1 million spent by their liberal counterparts. The Center for Responsive Politics charted this year’s numbers:


 

more mojo dark-money coverage

• Super-PAC Cash Still Favors GOP: Conservative super-PACs continue to dominate their liberal rivals in the latest round of fundraising.
• GOP Money Machine Choking Off Support For Rep. Todd Akin: Both Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the GOP’s main Senate committee are ending ad support for Akin.
• Lefty Dark-Money Group Drops $500K Attacking The Koch Brothers: Patriot Majority, a liberal nonprofit group, says its new ads are the opening shots of a sustained anti-Koch campaign.
 

more must-reads

• An exhaustive account of how nonprofits claiming to be social welfare groups are pouring millions of dollars into the 2012 election. ProPublica
• No one seems to be taking the rule banning campaigns from coordinating with outside spending groups too seriously. Politico
• While his brothers were off playing the dark-money game, Bill Koch built himself a private Old West town. Denver Post

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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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