Crossroads GPS And Americans For Prosperity Outspend All Super PACs Combined

Think Progress Justice

By Rebecca Leber  on Aug 14, 2012 at 3:50 pm

Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS (an affiliate of the super PAC American Crossroads) and the Koch brothers’ Americans For Prosperity have spent more on TV ads than every super PAC combined, according to a ProPublica analysis of CMAG data. Unlike super PACs, these groups do not have to disclose donors. That has allowed a handful of unknown billionaires  — like Sheldon Adelson and the Kochs — to funnel millions into attack ads through outside groups.

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Sheldon Adelson To Lavish $71 Million In Casino Money On GOP Super PACS, Nonprofits

Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson speaks at a news conference for the Sands Cotai Central in Macau Wednesday, April 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

HuffPost

Peter H. Stone

Posted: 06/16/2012 12:24 am Updated: 06/16/2012  2:06 am

WASHINGTON — Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, whose net worth makes him one of the world’s richest men, is on a check-writing spree that will soon bring his total political contributions in this election cycle to at least $71 million, according to sources familiar with his spending. That money is spread across the spectrum of GOP super PACs, which are required to disclose donors, and nonprofits, which are not.

Adelson and his wife, Miriam, along with other family donations, have already reached $36 million, including $10 million to the Romney-backing super PAC Restore Our Future that was reported this week. But two GOP fundraisers familiar with his plans say that Adelson has given or pledged at least $35 million more to three conservative nonprofit groups: the Karl Rove-linked Crossroads GPS, another with ties to billionaires Charles and David Koch and a third with links to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

Adelson, 78, is a staunch supporter of the Israeli right and a strong foe of American unions. In recent years, Adelson has been a major financier of GOP-allied groups, but has emerged this year as the consummate super donor in the wake of 2010 court rulings that permitted corporations, unions and individuals to supply unlimited amounts of money, sometimes anonymously, to independent groups that can advocate directly for candidates.

Adelson has told friends that he might give as much as $100 million in donations this year in support of GOP candidates and conservative issues. That target now seems easily within reach and could be surpassed, say the two GOP fundraisers with ties to the casino magnate.

Crossroads GPS — founded by GOP consultants Rove and Ed Gillespie in 2010 alongside the super PAC American Crossroads — could wind up as the major recipient of the casino titan’s largess, due to Adelson’s longstanding and close ties to Rove. Crossroads GPS has already received one $10 million cash infusion this cycle from Adelson, who, according to the two GOP fundraisers, recently committed to another donation of the same amount.

MORE HERE

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GOP Groups Plan $1 Billion Blitz

By: Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei

May 30, 2012 04:34 AM EDT

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.

That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections – twice what they had been expected to commit.

Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.

(PHOTOS: Republican money men)

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, proved its potency by spending nearly $50 million in the primaries. Now able to entice big donors with a neck-and-neck general election, the group is likely to meet its new goal of spending $100 million more.

And American Crossroads and the affiliated Crossroads GPS, the groups that Rove and Ed Gillespie helped conceive and raise cash for, are expected to ante up $300 million, giving the two-year-old organization one of the election’s loudest voices.

“The intensity on the right is white-hot,” said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. “We just can’t leave anything in the locker room. And there is a greater willingness to cooperate and share information among outside groups on the center-right.”

In targeted states, the groups’ activities will include TV, radio and digital advertising; voter-turnout work; mail and phone appeals; and absentee- and early-ballot drives.

The $1 billion in outside money is in addition to the traditional party apparatus – the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee – which together intend to raise at least $800 million.
MORE HERE

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Rove-Linked Crossroads GPS Launches $650,000 False Ad Campaign On Gas Prices (VIDEO)

Think Progress

By Josh Israel  on Mar 23, 2012 at 4:00 pm

This week, Crossroads GPS announced a $650,000 nationwide television adcampaign called “Deflect.”  The 30-second spot falsely blames Obama administration actions for the rise in gasoline prices since 2009.

Crossroads GPS is a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) group, affiliated with the American Crossroads super PAC. Karl Rove has been linked to both groups.

The spot begins by noting gas prices “then and now” — going up from the unusually low prices of January 2009 to the higher prices of today.  A narrator asks what has made the difference.

The narrator then claims the reasons for higher gas prices are:

– “President Obama’s administration restricted oil production in the Gulf”

– Limited development of American oil shale

– Obama personally lobbied to kill a pipeline bringing oil from Canada

VIDEO AND MORE HERE

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