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February 10, 2012 11:35 AM My God How the Money Rolls In (and Rolls Out)!

By Ed Kilgore

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Even as GOP candidates run the wingnut gauntlet at CPAC, a slightly different market test is taking a new turn, as Rick Santorum’s campaign and Super PAC get flush, while Newt Gingrich’s Vegas lifeline may have been abruptly yanked.

Foster Friess, a major donor to the Red, White and Blue Fund, a super-PAC backing Rick Santorum, said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday that money is “just absolutely rolling in” since the former Pennsylvania senator won three primary contests this week.
Friess said a single unidentified donor — not him — contributed $1 million to the fund.

The same report indicates an ominous lack of new contributions to the Gingrich Super PAC from the Adelson family:

In the past seven days, Winning Our Future has spent $61,290 on broadcast television advertisements, compared to $636,920 spent by Mitt Romney and a super-PAC backing him, Restore Our Future, according to data compiled by New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, a company that tracks advertising.
For now, the Adelsons don’t plan to deliver another big check to float Gingrich’s campaign, according to a person familiar with their deliberations. The family has donated a combined $11 million to Gingrich’s super-PAC in the past two months, according to interviews and Federal Election Commission records. An Adelson spokesman declined to comment.

I don’t pretend to understand the decision-making process of people for whom $11 million is pocket change (I did once work for an organization whose entire annual budget was smaller than the play-money one of our interns was given by his Wall Street daddy to try his hand at the stock market, which did not increase my faith in America as a strict meritocracy). Maybe Sheldon’s just acting by whim, or maybe he’s responding to the many veiled threats he’s receiving from Team Romney that his future White House access may be limited to standing-room at the Inauguration if he keeps up his subventions to Newt.

But this stuff matters a lot. Without Adelson’s money, Newt Gingrich is just an aging gasbag who needs to beat up on debate moderators to get oxygen for his campaign.

Ed Kilgore is a contributing writer to the Washington Monthly. He is is managing editor for The Democratic Strategist, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, and a Special Correspondent for The New Republic.
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Comments

  • stormskies on February 10, 2012 11:54 AM:

    Our country, thanks to the corrupt U.S. Corporate=Supreme Court, is not almost totally controlled by the oligarchy of the 400 families who comprise it. John Roberts, et-al, smile on in their determined intention to make it this way .......

  • Werewolf on February 10, 2012 12:01 PM:

    Money rolls in, money rolls out, you can't explain it....

  • james on February 10, 2012 12:02 PM:

    Ed, please, even WITH Adelson's money, Newt Gingrich is just an aging gasbag who needs to beat up on debate moderators to get oxygen for his campaign.

  • T2 on February 10, 2012 12:09 PM:

    looks like the WORD got to Adelson.....without his money I'd say Gingrich is toast (although we've all said that before). This might hasten his departure, at least.

  • CJ on February 10, 2012 12:22 PM:

    Without Adelson’s money, Newt Gingrich is just an aging gasbag who needs to beat up on debate moderators to get oxygen for his campaign.

    Agreed. But to be fair, the debates are, relatively speaking, fairly good equalizers. With his big money support, I suspect that Romney would be out of the race by now.

    By the way--stating the obvious--but the significant impact of television advertising on election results makes a sad statement about the American electorate.

  • CJ on February 10, 2012 12:23 PM:

    Correction: Without his big money support, I suspect that Romney would be out of the race by now.

  • emjayay on February 10, 2012 12:36 PM:

    MODERATOR:

    I don't know why no one else has complained, but the Preview system, which used to work just fine, has been improved. The new improved version makes no sense and does not work in several different ways.

    WTF?

  • Sgt. Gym Bunny on February 10, 2012 12:40 PM:

    "aging gasbag"

    I'm tickled. What a colorful expression. And it's even funnier that Callista is married to the gasbag... How sad for her. Wonder if she has any plans to abandon ship. She's still young and hasn't turned into complete mess of bones and botox injections, so she might still have some hope to get her claws into some other rising gasbag of the GOP.

    Anywho, is the broader American voting public a smidge concerned about how big money from individual donors is driving the election process in this supposedly representative democracy known as the USA? Well I guess with the rank-and-file GOPers they could care less as long as their man's out in front...

  • Joe Buck on February 10, 2012 12:57 PM:

    Unpaid internships at publications can only be filled by people who have some other means to live (checks from Daddy or the trust fund). It's a nice way of making sure that the organization will represent the point of view of the wealthy.

  • TCinLA on February 10, 2012 1:58 PM:

    the significant impact of television advertising on election results makes a sad statement about the American electorate.

    As Mencken observed back in 1924: nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

    The new improved version makes no sense and does not work in several different ways.

    Hey, isn't that the purpose of IT?? It certainly explains the success of the otherwise-unemployables who invented Captcha. The IT idiots at WM work ceaselessly to make this the most stupid political website in terms of operation. So far they're successful on their terms.

  • davidp on February 10, 2012 2:05 PM:

    "Even as GOP candidates run the wingnut gauntlet at CPAC ..."

    Ed, that is really funny. Let me tell you that your wit is appreciated. I love the way this blog has started.