Romney Loans 18 Million Dollars to His Campaign

Fox News site ^ | Jan. 31, 2008 | Shushannah Walshe

[logician2u]

San Diego, CA --

Mitt Romney gave 18 million dollars of his own money to his campaign in the last three months of 2007. In total, he has poured 35 million dollars of his personal fortune into his campaign.

The Romney camp also reported raising 9 million dollars in donations in the fourth quarter equaling 53.5 million dollars for the entire year. The campaign spent 33.8 million during the last 3 months of the year equaling 87.6 million dollars spent in 2007. The camp reports having 2.4 million dollars cash on hand at the end of the year. The campaign did not release any numbers for January meaning that Romney may have donated even more than 35 million dollars to his campaign.

The camp launched an aggressive ad blitz today signaling that former Massachusetts governor may have used more of his vast wealth, which is estimated at upwards of 250 million dollars.

Campaigns were required to file their end of the year finance reports today with the Federal Election Commission.

[ParaVet93]

Back in the 80’s when I was actually in good shape, I bought a pair of “Chuck Norris Action Jeans” They were tight fitting so I could acentuate my shapely buttocks yet had a lycra crotch so I could throw high kicks while wearing them, just in case I had to take on a gang of thugs. Well it turns out that occasion unfortunately never happened. That was the end of my involvement with Chuck Norris other than watch a few reruns of his lame TV shows. I had to laugh when he became Huck’s spokesmodel!

[1066AD]

by Shushannah Walshe

Is that a real name or is it the result of dictation after happy hour ?

[Dagnabitt]

If I were Mitt, I'd offer Huckabee a job as "evangelical outreach coordinator"

...salary: about 10 million dollars.

[deport]

If you just view the summary reports it’s a quick load. I didn’t download all the data, just the summary. Try this link;

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00431171/320473/

[deport]

If you just view the summary reports it’s a quick load. I didn’t download all the data, just the summary. Try this link;

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00431171/320473/

[Hattie]

Well prior to this posting for December, Mitt’s campaign had raised the most from individual donations. Don’t know if that still holds because I don’t see the other campaigns listed. So lots of people have been donating.

[yellowhammer]

McCain for one. He and his wife are multimillionaires yet he has been unwilling to make the sort of contribution to his own campaign that Mitt has to his.

[COgamer]

Wow... so much for his claiming to understand economics. Just breathtaking. His campaign won’t even have the money to pay him back - that money is GONE.

[sand88]

May go down as one of the most outrageous power-grabs in American history.

that is something an envious statist would say. I honor Mitt using his own because he spent many years in the private sector. McCain has blatantly shown he has absolutely no respect for the engine that powers this Republic -- capitalism. McCain is has a power lust and has spent his entire career in D.C. living off the taxpayers.

[mngran2]

It’s turning to Romney, slowly, unassuredly perhaps, but it’s turning.

Unfortunately for Romney, there's not enough time left for it to complete it's slow turn. This thing is going to be over on Tuesday.

[restornu]

Please after all these years you were in the closet boy was I fooled!

[sand88]

I thought the campaign donation limit was $2500 per person

Our Founders would be appalled at any restrictions on donations. If we had the government our Founders wished us to have, it would be so limited that there would be little power in Washington. The progressives and other statists in both parties have grown government to such a size that most every activity is in some way affected by government. All this CFR garbage hides the fact that government is insanely too large. There is nothing wrong with Mitt using his own money, he earned it.

[Antoninus]

that is something an envious statist would say. I honor Mitt using his own because he spent many years in the private sector.

So you think it's a good idea that a guy with hundreds of millions of dollars can just buy himself elected office, huh? You'd really like Mexico, then.

[deport]

ROmney had some $53 million and Guiliani had some %58 million in contributions through year end filng.

[whatisthetruth]

Another option concerning their contributors and YOUR donations, oh my!

http://www.opensecrets.org/

[sand88]

So you think it's a good idea that a guy with hundreds of millions of dollars can just buy himself elected office, huh? You'd really like Mexico, then.

Mexico? your reasoning is that of an envy driven liberal. What McCain, Hillary and other liberals are doing is trying to turn us into Mexico -- and they will use taxpayer money to win the office.

Let's say some billionaire who truly loved this Republic and wanted to turn back the tide of government. This person spends his own money spreading his message of cutting spending and eliminating unconstitutional departments. Furthermore, he is a great orator and people listen and decide to elect him and he succeeds. Would that be a bad thing? The simple fact that someone spends their own money does not make them bad or their intentions dishonorable. Mellon, a brilliant capitalist willingly used his own money to build many libraries across this land. I will never fault someone using their own capital in the marketplace of products or ideas. McCain and Hillary are parasitic politicians who have no understanding or respect for business owners. Have a good night.

[mountainbunny]

According to this:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp
Romney has raised about 62 million dollars.

And according to this:
http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/01/31/romney-loans-18-million-dollars-to-his-campaign/
35 million of that was his own money to start with.

62-35 = 27 million dollars were raised that was not-his-own money to start with.

To contrast, according to the first link, McCain has raised 32 million dollars, roughly half of what Romney has had at his disposal. And he's got more to show for it (delegates): http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/republican_delegate_count.html
McCain has 92, Romney has 59.
So Romney is spending close to twice as much (more than half of which was his own cash) for a bit more than only about 2/3 of the delegates.
So, I don't see the groundswell of support for Romney. I don't see him as a candidate who can win given the amount he's spent for the results he has, especially given how much was his own money. If you support a candidate, you give them money.

[Antoninus]

Let's say some billionaire who truly loved this Republic and wanted to turn back the tide of government.

How about this. A man with a lot of great ideas, talent, and political acumen but $100,000 in the bank truly loved the Republic and wanted to turn back the tide of government. He wouldn't have a prayer--and people like you would tell him "You don't have the resources to run. Don't even bother."

Real change is much more likely to come from just such a man than from any corporate elite billionaire. Take a tally some time and see where most of those types stand on the issues. Few of them are conservatives and few of them truly believe in capitalism. It's not for nothing that Christ said, "Man can not serve both God and Mammon."

If you're depending on the corporate elites to turn things around in this country, you're going to be waiting a long, long time.

[flaglady47]

“It gives me great pleasure to know how much money is going to lose a futile campaign that is going nowhere.”

There you go again, Mormon-hater. Just can’t help but sink your pit-bull fangs in again, can you.

[CharlesWayneCT]

The longer Huckabee runs, the worse he does. If he was improving each time, he might be a reasonable choice to knock out McCain.

As it is, he’s just another candidate offered up to conservatives and rejected by most of them.

Romney is the only candidate left who still manages to get majority support from conservatives. Thompson did so, but couldn’t win an election.

The few people now supporting Huckabee needed to support him and endorse him when he first hid the radar scope, to try to halt the negative attacks which effectively labeled him as a liberal.