Buying elections

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson tops list of presidential campaigns' biggest donors
Saturday October 20, 2012
BY STEPHEN BRAUN AND JACK GILLUM
Associated Press

For a casino mogul worth an estimated $25 billion, $34.2 million may sound like chump change. Yet that’s how much money Sheldon Adelson has donated so far to aid Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and organizations supporting Romney this election, making him the donor of donors for the GOP. Other top donors giving millions of dollars to aid Romney’s campaign include a trio of Texas money moguls and the head of a South Florida-based energy conglomerate.

Their rankings atop the list of Republican donors shifted Friday as new campaign donation totals for September were released by the Federal Election Commission. Adelson remained ahead of the pack, but two of the Texas donors switched places.
 

ASSOCITED PRESS

Almost $2 billion combined has been donated to help elect either President Obama or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Updated numbers show the top donor to the Republican challenger sits at $34.2 million, and for the Democratic incumbent it's $2.56 million.

 

• On the Democrats’ side, the top donor would fail to crack the top 5 among Republican backers. Movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg has raised more money than any other Democratic donor at $2.56 million.

• The DreamWorks Animation CEO joins two other media moguls, a personal-injury lawyer and a philanthropist in giving millions of dollars to help President Obama win a second term.

Those donors and others are funding a presidential election on track to cost nearly $2 billion, with money going toward individual Democratic and Republican campaigns as well as independent, “super” political committees working on the campaigns’ behalf.

• Adelson and his wife, Miriam, a physician who heads the Nevada-based Adelson Drug Clinic, have given $10 million to the Restore Our Future, a super PAC backing Romney. Adelson also joined relatives to give $24 million to committees backing former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. And he has made public pledges vowing to give $10 million to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC and as much as $100 million this election more broadly to the GOP.
  He also donated $500,000 to the super PAC running TV ads supporting Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s campaign to unseat Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. in North Jersey’s 9th Congressional District.
  Worth an estimated $25 billion, Adelson oversees the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which runs casino and resort interests in Las Vegas, Singapore and Bethlehem, Pa., and Sands China Ltd., a cluster of casinos in the Chinese territory of Macau. He would benefit from loosened trade restrictions and a rise in the Chinese currency rate against the dollar.
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  Katzenberg’s biggest contributions include $2 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC. It was founded by former White House advisers and is the key pro-Obama PAC this election cycle. Katzenberg has helped “bundle” more than $500,000 for the president’s second term, making him among the campaign’s top volunteer fundraisers. He’s also given more than $66,000 to Obama’s campaign and the Democratic Party.

• Bob J. Perry had been at No. 3 among GOP donors, after giving $15.3 million to aid the Romney campaign and allied causes so far this election season. But federal campaign figures released Friday showed a new $2 million donation to Restore Our Future in September, vaulting Perry into the No. 2 spot.
  Long active in Texas and national GOP politics, Perry has donated a total of $10.7 million to Restore Our Future and $6.5 million to American Crossroads. Before backing Romney this year, Perry gave $100,000 to the super PAC backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry (no relation).

• Harold Simmons has donated $1.3 million to Restore Our Future — $500,000 in September. Simmons and his wife, Annette, also gave $2.2 million to Super PACs backing former GOP presidential candidates Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry.
  Simmons has been active in political fundraising since the 1990s and in 2004 was a $4 million backer of the Swift Vets campaign, the GOP-backed effort to discredit Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s military record in the Vietnam War.

• Irwin Jacobs has given more than $2 million to pro-Obama super PACs and about $23,000 directly to Obama’s campaign and the Democrats. But he’s no newcomer to political giving: The La Jolla, Calif., billionaire has routinely backed San Diego-area politicians, including those in City Hall.

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