Report: Perry Super PAC Expects to Raise $55 Million

Texas Governor Rick Perry is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickperry/5063072171/sizes/z/in/set-72157625123096632/">Rick Perry</a>/Flickr

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MSNBC’s Michael Isikoff gets a hold of internal communications from Make Us Great Again, a new Super PAC set up by supporters of Texas Governor Rick Perry, and reports that it expects to raise and spend $55 million during the Republican presidential primary:

The new super PAC backing Rick Perry has drawn up plans to spend $55 million as part of an ambitious campaign strategy aimed at blowing away the Texas governor’s rivals in early primary states and securing him the Republican nomination by next spring, according to internal committee documents obtained by NBC News.

The documents underscore the central role that such super PACs — or super political action committees unconstrained by any limits on how much they can collect from wealthy donors and corporations — will play in the 2012 presidential election.

They also show that the strategists behind the new Perry super PAC, led by a longtime Perry confidant and backed with infusions of cash from major Perry donors, are preparing to mount a full service political operation — complete with TV advertising, direct mail and social media outreach.

Super PACs can accept unlimited contributions but most disclose donor information and cannot coordinate in any way with candidates. In the post-Citizens United climate, super PACs have become the hottest new accessory for presidential candidates, and all of the serious GOP contenders have at least one. Make Us Great Again was organized by Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff, who has remained close with the governor as a lobbyist in Austin and contributed generously to his most recent re-election bid.

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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.

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