Pay No Attention to the Superrich Donors Behind the Curtain

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/jded/3517427116/">JD_WMWM</a> (<a href="http://www.creativecommons.org">Creative Commons</a>).

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A small handful of superrich businessmen and corporations are behind Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, the most prominent Republican “Super PAC,” which brought in an eyebrow-raising $15 million from September 1 to mid-October. Of that amount, more than $7 million came from a single contributor, Texas homebuilder Bob Perry—a longtime Republican donor who rose to infamy for backing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s attacks on John Kerry in 2004. Other major donors include Robert Rowling, an oil and hotel billionaire from Texas who threw in $1.5 million, and the Alliance Resource Group, a financial services firm with investments in the coal industry, which gave $2 million. Together with B. Wayne Hughes of a Kentucky-based company called Public Storage, these four donors made up two-thirds of the most recent donations to the group.

The third-quarter haul brings Americans Crossroads’ total fundraising to $23 million. That doesn’t even include the millions of undisclosed donations that are being funneled through the group’s sister organization, American Crossroads GPS, which as a 501(c)4 isn’t required to reveal its donors. And it’s starting to become apparent how this torrent of cash could end up altering the political landscape. Crossroads recently launched a “House surge strategy” to pour cash into competitive districts where Democrats didn’t think they would have to defend themselves. As a result, Dave Weigel reports, typically safe Democrats who’d otherwise give their funds to more endangered members have had to spend their own cash—most notably Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who loaned his own campaign $200,000 after an unexpectedly tough challenge in his home district.

Early in the summer, many observers wrote off Rove’s group for only raising $200 in May, when it had just $1.25 million in the bank. The tea party, in all its raucous, pageview-generating glory held the spotlight, while establishment Republican operatives faded into the background. So no one paid much attention as Rove and his collaborators worked under the radar to court big donors and build up their shadow Republican Party. And all it took was a small handful of megadonors to change the calculus of the election.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate