GOP race making Republican voters to feel discourage

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CHART: The 19 Super PAC Donors Who Have Poured $47 Million Into The GOP Race

By Josh Israel/Think Progress




Once again this week, independent-expenditure-only “Super PACs” disclosed their donors for the month of January 2012. A ThinkProgress analysis of these new filings and previously available data reveals that 19 wealthy donors have already given a million dollars or more each, combining to funnel $46.75 million to Republican-allied Super PACs so far this cycle.

It comes as little surprise that this list is dominated by financial sector investors (8), energy and chemical producers (4), and real estate developers (3). All are white. Only one, the wife of casino tycoon Sheldon Edelson, is female. The Obama administration has backed financial sector consumer protections and environmental regulations unpopular with big Wall Street and big energy.

The 19 donors’ contributions accounted for about 53 percent of the $88.2 million combined receipts for those committees. Here are the 19:

Donor	Donations	Sector
Harold Simmons/Contran Corp.	$14.1M	Chemicals
Sheldon Adelson	$5M	Casinos and hotels
Miriam Adelson	$5M	Casinos and hotels
Bob Perry	$3.5M	Real Estate/Construction
Peter Thiel	$2.6M	Finance/Investment
Jon Huntsman Sr.	$2.2M	Chemicals
Jerry Perenchio Living Trust	$2M	Media
Julian Robertson	$1.25M	Finance/Investment
Robert B. Rowling	$1.1M	Energy
Edward Conard	$1M	Finance/Investment
Robert Mercer	$1M	Finance/Investment
John Paulson	$1M	Finance/Investment
Paul Singer	$1M	Finance/Investment
Foster Friess	$1M	Finance/Investment
Rooney Holdings Inc.	$1M	Real Estate/Construction
William Dore	$1M	Energy
Whiteco Industries	$1M	Real Estate/Construction
F8 LLC (Jeremy Blickenstaff)	$1M	Finance/Investment
Eli Publishing (Steve Lund)	$1M	Cosmetics

These donations went to Super PACs backing GOP hopefuls Newt Gingrich (Winning Our Future), Ron Paul (Endorse Liberty), Mitt Romney (Restore Our Future), Rick Santorum (Red, White & Blue), backing former candidates Jon Huntsman Jr. (Our Destiny), Rick Perry (Make Us Great Again), and Republican candidates in general (American Crossroads).

To equal just their Super PAC contributions, political campaigns would need to collect more than 18,000 checks for $5,000 — the individual limit. Republican strategist Christopher LaCivita told the New York Times that these super donors are “serious business tycoons.” And these serious business tycoons are seriously overwhelming the political system with their contributions.

Mitt Romney Legitimizing White Nationalists By Speaking At CPAC Today

By Daniella Gibbs/Think Progress guest blogger




Today, GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich will kiss the ring of CPAC, the annual gathering of hundreds of conservative activists in Washington, DC. This is a must-do pilgrimage for anyone running for president on the GOP ticket; in fact this is where Romney ended his 2008 campaign. There are usually a host of controversial panelists and topics, but this year they’ve outdone themselves.

As noted by PFAW, this year, among the participants in the conference is Peter Brimelow and Robert Vandervoort. Brimelow is the founder and head of the White Nationalist hate website VDARE, a site known for publishing the works of racist and anti-Semitic authors. Robert Vandervoort is the director of ProEnglish, an English-only group, and is a former leader of the White Nationalist group Chicagoland Friends of the American Renaissance.

These aren’t just your average conservative activists. They have actively pushed the idea that our diversity is killing us, that Jews are destroying the American white majority, and that non-white immigrants are the cause for our economic problems.

We’ve already seen a GOP more than willing to use racially-coded language throughout the primary season. But is presumed front runner Romney really going to appear at the same conference as people who spew such hatred towards people of color and ethnic minorities? If he wants to be the president of ALL Americans and not just white Americans, Mitt Romney should refuse to speak today. And if he feels he must go on stage, then he needs to denounce Brimelow and Vanervoort’s odious beliefs from the stage. Anything less is tantamount to agreeing with what they say.

As Conservatives Fume Over Trump Endorsement, They Can Thank Fox News

by Eric Boehlert/media matters

Lots of conservative opinion makers expressed dismay at the sight of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney appearing in Las Vegas Thursday to receive the endorsement of reality TV host, and full-time birther, Donald Trump. Livid GOP boosters denounced the move as "unseemly" and a "fiasco" that represents the "biggest blunder" of Romney's candidacy. They openly mocked the Republican for his "moronic" campaign maneuver.

Message: Trump is a joke and Romney looked small and un-presidential glad-handing the developer on stage.

The slings may be directed Team Romney's way, but who's really to blame for Thursday's campaign "fiasco"? Fox News.

Let's not forget it was Fox News that nearly twelve months ago decided that golf course owner Donald Trump ought to be elevated to national status as a Republican kingmaker and Very Serious Person. It was Fox News, desperate for new anti-Obama content, that embraced Trump's farcical birther charade.

Celebrating Trump last year, Fox News covered the birther story with endless "news" segments, only to watch the tale crash in spectacular fashion when the White House released the president's long-form birth certificate. 

The original rise of Trump, not to mention his return this week, was bought and paid for by Roger Ailes and Fox News. They were the ones who couldn't stop pointing a camera at him last year when he went all birther. They were the ones who turned him into a GOP celebrity. (Sadly, other media outlets followed.) And Fox was the one that, yet again, moved to elevate celebrity above policy and common sense within the conservative movement.

Without Fox's incessant marketing last year, who would even care which candidate Trump is endorsing in this year's GOP primary? Likely nobody. But because Fox made the conscious decision to transform Trump into a right-wing celebrity, nominees-to-be like Mitt Romney now feel the need to embrace his "unseemly" and "moronic" endorsement.

Conservatives are shaking their heads. Maybe now they'll begin to understand how Fox News is destroying the Republican Party. 

How The GOP Candidates Would Affect The People Of South Carolina, By The Numbers

By Tanya Somanader/Think Progress

Tomorrow, South Carolina will hold its First in the South primary to determine the state’s pick for the GOP nomination. But while most of the state’s focus is on who people will be voting for, what about those who are actually doing the voting?

With the state’s unemployment rate well above the national average and more than 18 percent of residents living in poverty, economic securityis certainly a driving concern for the majority of voters. But, given the GOP field’s stances, it doesn’t seem to be a concern candidates are taking to heart.

Here’s a look at how the GOP candidates’ positions would affect the vulnerable populations of South Carolina, by the numbers:

–Over 3,000,000: There are at least at least 3,380,000 eligible voters in South Carolina, but many students, seniors, low-income voters, and minority voters may find it difficult to actually cast a ballot thanks to the state’s new voter ID law. Rick Santorum called it a “common-sense anti-fraud” measure that prevents the vote of “people who probably shouldn’t be voting.” Newt Gingrich blasted President Obama’s rejection of the law as trying to “steal elections.”

–Over 200,000: There are at least 213,000 unemployed South Carolinianscontributing to the state’s 9.9 percent unemployment rate. While those receiving unemployment insurance actually work harder to find a job, according to studies, Gingrich equates joblessness with laziness and demands that any benefits come through a work-training program — or a drug test.

–Over 400,000: There were at least 408,000 veterans living in South Carolina in 2009. veterans increasingly need to be treated for traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and other health consequences of war. While Mitt Romney briefly flirted with turning the VA into a voucher system, Gingrich adopted the idea wholesale, stating we should “find a way to have a voucherized system for those who want it.”

–Over 650,000: In 2009, there were over 650,000 people in the state participating in the food stamp program, and the economic recession has no doubt only increased those numbers. Rather than address the need of vulnerable South Carolinians, Gingrich and Santorum traffic in “ugly, racial stereotypes” to justify calls to drug test recipients and cut funding for the needy.