Free Republic

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz speaks to a crowd gathered at Prime Time Restaurant in Guthrie Center, Iowa, on Monday, Jan. 4, 2016. (Photo by Rebecca F. Miller) A super PAC supporting Ted Cruz is making its biggest investment yet in television advertising, reserving $2.5 million of airtime in Iowa and South Carolina with less than two weeks until the first nominating contests begin. The effort also comes as the U.S. senator from Texas wades deeper into a battle with billionaire Donald Trump that is expected to grow more contentious in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses — and possibly require...

Major GOP donors and fundraisers are wondering whether they're wasting their money on super-PACs. They say they're not ready to abandon the super-PACs, but they're starting to look for ways to make them more effective during a presidential cycle that has challenged conventions about how to spend political donations.

News articles concerning the most influential political donors in America typically list the same names: The Koch brothers, George Soros, Sheldon Adelson and, lately, Tom Steyer. But as we reach the end of 2015, none of these billionaires has spent big in the 2016 contest, at least not at an individual candidate level. In their absence, a number of lesser known donors are shaping up to be major players in 2016. Here are five to watch: 1. The DeVos Family We're cheating by including a whole family in our list, but there is no way of separating out this high-spending...

Throughout 2015, we kept hearing warnings that wealthy individuals would dominate the presidential election, and perhaps even influence the outcome, all because of court-made changes in campaign-finance law that allowed unlimited contributions and spending. So why did Big Money in politics end up to be a big bust in 2015? Super PACs -- political action committees that can accept unlimited amounts from just about anyone but can't coordinate with the candidate -- have been spending money, yet have little to show for it. Other dark-money sources -- essentially nonprofit social-welfare groups that don't have to disclose their donors -- had...

I had the opportunity to sit down yesterday with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 100% at a campaign event in Nashville and ask him several questions. One of the questions I asked was whether Senator Cruz still supported expanding the H-1B visa program, as he has in the past. Senator Cruz indicated that he no longer does, and you can see his explanation here: Transcript: RedState: Senator, I think the path to legalization issue has been beaten to death and I won't go over it again. One of the things you have supported in the past is raising the ceiling on...

Oh, I could hear the balloon deflating all the way from the Politico headquarters.Phllloooooooopppphhtt.Last week, on the day of the highly-watched GOP presidential debate, someone gave Politico’s Mike Allen an enticing piece of catnip to put in his insidery morning email. Secret audio tape would soon be published on a conservative news site supposedly showing that Ted Cruz talks much differently to NYC moderates than Iowa evangelicals. “These leaks are designed to undermine Cruz’s authenticity,” Allen wrote.The prospect of a juicy secret recording flew around the Internet. People reported on the prospect of the audio tape, before ever hearing a...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, we know The Politico's where the Republican establishment goes to leak. The Politico, that's where the Republican Party establishment leaks their plans. That's where they leak their intentions. That's the mainstream. The Republican establishment has chosen The Politico as their jumping-off point to have people in the establishment know what they're doing, as opposed to leaking it to me, as opposed to leaking it to, take your pick of a conservative, they go to the Politico. So here it is, the headline: "GOP Group Plans Most Aggressive Anti-Trump Campaign Yet." And there is a companion story...

This is an ACTION ALERT for those of you following the RNC/GOPe road map and actively engaged in following the maneuvers within the Republican Party. Previously we shared the RNC rule changes which modified all primary elections between March 1st and March 14th 2016 to make delegate distributions “Proportional” based on a percentage of the vote. All contests held on or after March 15th 2016 were then winner-take-all (or some assembly therein). The construct of the 2014/2015 rule changes were specifically created to make the pathway for Jeb Bush and block any candidate who was able to garner a “movement”...

It’s a new era of American politics. With regard to campaign finance, the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling — and the arguably worse McCutcheon v. FEC ruling — opened the doors to unrestricted corporate funding of our national elections. The primary mechanism in place facilitating this flood of private money is the super PAC. You’ve probably heard of super PACs and how they’ve essentially taken over the role traditionally filled by individual campaign donors in Political Action Committees (PACs). But super PACs aren’t the end of it. There are puppet political non-profits, business associations, and now, single-candidate “dark money” outfits...

The ancient Romans coined the phrase "dog days" based on the period of time that the brightest star (Sirius, the Dog Star) rose and set in conjunction with the sun. The Romans believed that Sirius radiated heat to the Earth, causing the hottest part of the year as it traveled with the sun. The date range for the annual "dog-day" period varies based on the source. The Old Farmer's Almanac refers to the 40-day period that begins July 3 and ends August 11. The 1552 Book of Common Prayer refers to the period from July 6 to August 17. Many...

We've seen a flurry of presidential campaign announcements over the last several weeks: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee. Oh my. But there's still at least one big notable absence. Jeb Bush, the first candidate to actually declare he was exploring a presidential bid, seems in no hurry to formally launch one. Instead, Bush has put in motion a plan that's effectively wrecking what's left of our flimsy campaign finance laws. Bush is taking the time before his formal announcement to build a super PAC that Politico says "would be...

Is it a good thing or a bad thing that a presidential candidate demonstrates an ability to raise enough money to effectively reach the “inhabitants of America” with his political message? On Friday, National Public Radio’s The Diane Rehm Show took a further drag on our tax dollars to take incredulous note of the fact that four Super PACs supportive of Republican Ted Cruz’s campaign for president declared having collected, collectively, $31 million. One of Diane’s guests, Neal King, Jr., with the Wall Street Journal, explained that all four PACs associated with the Cruz effort sport the “Keep the Promise”...

The late, great Eric Hoffer once said that, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Some people have started to wonder whether that’s happened to groups in the conservative movement – and that’s understandable. Reports about sleazy activities by conservative groups have not exactly been in short supply over the last couple of years. Damaging stories have popped up on the Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Washington Post, the Politico and at the Daily Caller among other outlets. Additionally, for those of us who have a lot of friends in the Tea...

Some Illinois lawmakers are calling for a federal constitutional convention to amend the Constitution in order to allow laws that limit the influence of money in politics. “When the Supreme Court of the United States rules that money is a protected speech and that ordinary people cannot pass common-sense laws because they might dilute the influence of the super-rich, it’s time to change the game,” Illinois State Senator Jacqueline Collins of the 16th District says. …

Republican operatives want to help establishment candidates fend off tea party challenges with a new weapon: unlimited cash. Consultants and attorneys—including the co-founder of the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC—are laying the groundwork or have already filed paperwork for dozens of super PACs organized to support individual candidates running next year. The effort is the biggest re-evaluation of the Republican Party’s outside money strategy since the dawn of the super PAC era—bringing traditional big dollar donors into the primary races that pulled the party in a direction that alienated those donors in the first place. …

The Free Beacon has a brief profile of Kareem Ahmed from TPM, one of the few million dollar donors to Obama’s SuperPACs. You’d be forgiven if you don’t recognize Ahmed’s name. Before this year, his political giving was limited to a few four-figure checks to California candidates. Several veteran California politics watchers contacted for this story had no idea who Ahmed was, either. But here’s the thing: so far in 2012, Ahmed’s contributions to Obama, Democrats, and the outside spending groups that support them have totaled more than $1.1 million. Ahmed’s wife, Tayyaba Farhat, has contributed another $75,000. At...

Mike Duncan, chairman of the powerful super PAC American Crossroads, tells Newsmax.TV that undecided voters will make up their minds late in the campaign and elect Mitt Romney as the next president. He also says he is confident that Republicans will retain control of the House and are within “striking distance” of winning the Senate. (VIDEO AT LINK) Duncan served as the chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2007 to 2009, and on the campaigns of five presidents. He is also the president and CEO of American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. His political action committee American Crossroads, backed...

As the super PAC aligned with Barack Obama is coming under fire for suggesting Mitt Romney might have been responsible for a woman dying of cancer, President Obama knocked Republican super PACs in a speech today in Colorado: "Now, I have to tell you that we have less than three months left in the election," Obama said. "Less than three months. Time's flying. and over the next three months, you will see more negative ads, more money spent than you have ever seen in your life. I mean, these super PACs, and these guys are writing $10 million checks and...

In one of the more loathsome displays of this election season, Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs, appearing on today's Morning Joe, refused to criticize an ad from an Obama-endorsed Super PAC that accuses Mitt Romney of being responsible for a woman's death from cancer. The former Obama press secretary used every tired dodge in the book to evade criticizing the commercial. Gibbs variously claimed that: he hadn't seen the ad; wasn't familiar with the specifics of the woman's case, and didn't want to announce a general policy on denouncing false Super PAC ads. His evasions were too much not only...

It is now accepted political reality that Romney and the wildly successful Republican super-PACs will out-raise Obama, and outspend him on the airwaves. Despite that, the president was always expected to at the very least match his record-breaking 2008 numbers — enough to keep his unparalleled ground game humming along. That may be increasingly unlikely, reports the New York Times, after perusing the president's reelection finances.So far, the Obama campaign has spent over $400 million (a fifth of that went to advertising), with another $52 million on payroll and benefits. For the first time ever, the president and the Democrats...