Free Republic

MADISON — Candidate committees can rack up cash in a hurry, especially during a high stakes race. And provisions in election law allow campaigns to invest campaign funds, bolstering — or diminishing — contributions. In the 2011-12 election cycle, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-District 1, raised nearly $2.5 million, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. At the end of 2011, his candidate committee held $4.6 million. In early 1999, Citizens for Arlen Specter, the campaign for the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, sought the opinion of the FEC to determine what could be done with his excess cash,...

President Obama’s campaign team has put together a website to remind us what the Yuletide season is truly all about — getting him re-elected. So they’ve decided to offer Americans a collection of special decorations for the “holiday” season... ...And don’t worry about messing up your furniture with water stains because the Commander-in-Chief also has a line of glass coasters. But if you’re sipping a Martini, why not just throw a backyard barbecue? And President Obama has just what you need — a “Fired Up and Ready to Grill” apron, a six-pack presidential cooler, and a nifty Commander-in-Chief cutting board...

<p>Michelle Obama makes her first visit as first lady to Broward County this week. She'll be raising money for her husband's re-election effort.</p> <p>"There's tremendous excitement," said Andrew Weinstein, a Coral Springs lawyer active in Democratic politics. He's a volunteer fundraiser for President Barack Obama's campaign.</p>

Mitt Romney has been raising a lot of money from the financial sector in recent months as he criticizes a historic package of new industry regulations signed by President Obama last year, according to campaign financial reports filed last week. The largest corporate sources of money for Romney are mostly finance industry leaders , including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America. Goldman Sachs employees have given nearly a quarter of a million dollars in contributions. Romney led the other Republican presidential contenders on the fundraising front during the second quarter, raising more than $18 million, while none of his competitors...

WASHINGTON — Rick Perry is the 100 million dollar man of Texas politics. Over the past decade, he has been a political money machine, raising more than $100 million for three gubernatorial campaigns and another $50 million for GOP candidates as chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 2007-2008. But the Texas governor's fundraising prowess will be tested as never before if he runs for president in 2012. While he's raised more campaign cash than anybody not named Bush in Texas history, Perry faces different rules and greater demands should he set his sights on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. "In order...

AUSTIN — The three-year prison sentence meted out to former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in a political money laundering case is far harsher than sentences recommended for two other public offenders recently convicted in Central Texas. .. likelihood that DeLay's case will be overturned on appeal before he ever sees the inside of a prison cell, according to several criminal defense lawyers. DeLay's sentence may reflect more on his remorseless attitude before visiting District Judge Pat Priest than on the seriousness of the crime, .. "Maybe DeLay flunked the attitude test in front of Pat Priest," William Allison,...

As Democrats head for what promises to be an election fiasco of historic propor tions, a pre-emptive excuse has begun to circulate: It's all because of Citizens United. Team Donkey fans claim the Jan. 21 decision, in which the Supreme Court overturned restrictions on the political speech of corporations, triggered a flood of negative advertising by what President Obama calls "shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names." If independent groups favoring Team Elephant have a spending advantage so far, it's not because of recent changes in the law. Most of the advertising that irks Democrats was legal before Citizens United, and the...

Sometimes provocative people become that way because they were provoked. Sharron Angle, 60, could be enjoying the 10 grandchildren she loves even more than her .44 magnum. Instead, she is the Republican nominee against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's quest for a fifth term. Her campaign began, in a sense, three decades ago, when a judge annoyed her. When her son was depressed about having to repeat kindergarten ("He was a 6-year-old dropout") she decided on home schooling, which Nevada law permitted. But a judge construed the law to require that parents who home school must live at least 50...

Now that Charlie Crist has left the Republican Party to mount an independent run for Senate, Texas Sen. John Cornyn wants a refund of all the money his political action committee donated to the Florida governor. Cornyn, who runs the GOP campaign operation for the Senate, expects a number of Republicans to demand money back from Crist because they don't want his independent bid to be financed with party funds, The Wall Street Journal reported. "People have already asked for their money back and I expect that to continue," Cornyn said Thursday. "I certainly will request the money I donated...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic lawmakers on Thursday introduced legislation to blunt the impact of a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations, unions and other groups to spend unlimited funds on political campaigns. Unveiled by Senator Charles Schumer on the steps of the court, the White House-backed initiative calls for the unprecedented disclosure of money in politics three months after the court ruled 5-4 that long-standing campaign finance limits violated the free speech rights of corporations. The court ruling is expected to unleash a flood of money from the traditionally pro-Republican business community to campaigns designed to favor or oppose...

What better message to send to Washington than to defeat an old bull like Charlie Rangel? Rangel is one of the principal symbols of the tolerance Washington has for corrupt insider politics. He is Chairman-in-school-detention of the House Ways and Means Committee pending efforts of Democrats to avoid the most devastating mid-term election defeat in history. Because he usually doesn't have a serious challenger, Rangel is able to funnel in the neighborhood of a half million dollars every election cycle to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Such political largesse protects corruption. Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats dole out...

ACORN may be fading away, thanks to government restrictions on its funding in the wake of the scandal in which its counselors advised undercover journalists on how to evade the law. But this does nothing to change the environment that propelled the radical activist group to national power. ACORN is part of a huge network of nonprofits that continues to promote a big-government agenda in cities across America using taxpayer money. That network is alive and well today, even if ACORN itself dies. This movement's roots go back to the godfather of community organizing, Chicago's Saul Alinsky, who in the...

He has more than $12 million socked away for his re-election, no primary challenger, and a 20 point lead on his closest GOP adversary. What does Senator Evan Bayh, retiring after two terms, know that we don't? Chris Cillizza: "Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh will not seek re-election this year, a decision that hands Republicans a prime pickup opportunity in the middle of the country. 'After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned,' Bayh will say, according to prepared remarks obtained by the...

President Barack Obama, criticized by campaign finance reform advocates for not living up to his repeated pledges to reduce the role of special interests in elections, plans an aggressive push-back to last week’s Supreme Court decision overturning restrictions on political spending by corporations, unions and other organizations. POLITICO has learned that the White House is in talks with congressional offices about efforts to require shareholders to vote before a corporation could spend money in elections, require companies that pay for ads supporting or opposing candidates to more clearly identify themselves in the ads, restrict the ability of companies with big...

Fox had an interesting story on this morning. Obama's campaign does not have AVS turned on for it's credit card processing on donations (AVS = Address Verification Service). So, in reality, there is no name validation or address verification tied to his donations, and a ton of money is pouring in from Europe and elsewhere. They can just type in anyname they want to, Fox listed some of the names, Adolf Hilter, William Ayers, Yogi Bear, and so on. Basically, the Obama campaign has put the US Presidency on his own EBay and Europe and others are saying "Okay, we...

WASHINGTON – Republican prospects in U.S. Senate races this November grew grimmer Friday, as the head of the party's campaign arm announced he must reduce its budget because GOP senators are raising too little money.

The Hillary Clinton Accountability Project will shortly launch its fundraising drive to raise $500,000 to support the most important citizen’s legal initiative of 2008. The landmark civil fraud suit of Paul vs. Clinton et al which the California Supreme Court ordered to proceed against the Clintons, Grammys Producer Gary Smith and Clinton agent Jim Levin, will be set for trial and a discovery schedule at a special conference to be held in Los Angeles Superior Court on February 21, 2008. The first law suit in American history to bring a President and a Senator to court for defrauding the Senator’s...

With an endorsement of sorts from George Bush, Hillary has now rounded up about all the big names and moneybags in Washington politics. The President predicts she will get the Democratic nomination, and everything seems to be going her way. Never has the adjective "golden" found a more apposite noun to modify than "Ms. Clinton." The woman has always had an affinity for gold. You can trace her appetite for bling back to her Arkansas days, when she was a partner in the Rose Law Firm. Questions arose about her billing clients, which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. Nor...

WASHINGTON — North Carolina elections officials are investigating whether a national Democratic campaign organization violated the state's ban on corporate donations. Investigators are looking at donations by individuals and North Carolina corporations to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a national group that works to get Democrats elected to statehouses around the nation. The committee has given more than $750,000 to the North Carolina Democratic Party since 2004. At issue: Did the money that the group routed to North Carolina come only from individuals or did it include corporate money, in violation of North Carolina law? Michael Sargeant, the campaign committee's...

The following is excerpted from remarks by Chairman Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's yesterday: Mr. President . . . This Is Your Campaign' Wednesday, October 8, 1997; Page A21 I think as probably everyone knows now, this committee has, since April of this year, made inquiry as to whether or not there were visual and audio recordings pertaining to the White House, pertaining to the fund-raisers, specifically with regard to coffees. We have been told consistently since that time that no such things existed. In July we were pretty well informed that that was not the...