Alexander Ryking

[T]he threat to [Orrin] Hatch really isn’t [his Tea Party challenger Dan] Liljenquist and anything he might say and do; it’s an outside group or individual deciding to target the race and pour big money into the anti-Hatch effort. If this were to happen, it might not matter that Hatch has given his enemies little in the way of ammunition. With enough money, anyone can be made to look bad. And the one thing Hatch can’t run away from is his political longevity, which is a liability to today’s outsider/purity-obsessed GOP base.

Mahtesian notes that the Club for Growth seems unlikely to enter the fray, but in the super PAC era, a billionaire or millionaire could at any moment take a random interest in any race and alter the outcome with a hefty investment. The best illustration of this came Tuesday night in Kentucky, where Tom Massie won a GOP congressional primary after a rich 21-year-old Texas college student spent more than $500,000 on his behalf. A week before that, another plutocrat fueled the unexpected rise of Deb Fischer in a Nebraska Senate primary.

The pro-Fischer money didn’t come in until the final few days of that race. Which means that even though he’s in good shape now, Hatch still has a month of sweating ahead of him.

The super PAC supporting Mitt Romney’s presidential bid has accepted more than $1.2 million from federal government contractors, in apparent defiance of campaign-finance regulators.

The contributions, reported by the Restore Our Future political action committee over a nine-month stretch ending in February, came from firms in fields such as energy, engineering, and health care. They represent businesses with federal contracts totaling more than $244 million, according to government records.

The ban on political giving by such contractors has existed since the 1940s. Even so, several of the donors stand by their contributions.

[New York] is considering a campaign finance law that would repair some of the Citizens United damage, and in a way the Supreme Court wouldn’t be able to touch.

The idea is that to offset the power of large donors, citizens without deep pockets should be encouraged to flood the system with small contributions that the government would match. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has pledged to a state overhaul of this sort, based on the one already in force for New York City elections…

The New York City program is straightforward: The government gives participating candidates $6 in matching funds for every dollar raised from individuals who live in the city, up to the first $175. At a maximum, this means a $175 contribution is augmented by $1,050 in public funds. That’s a mighty incentive for politicians to involve more citizens in paying for campaigns. In the city system, participating candidates have to live within certain spending and contribution limits. In a new statewide system, there are likely to be no spending restrictions but lower limits on contributions.

The beautiful thing is that this approach should answer most of the criticisms offered by those who defend the Citizens United world.

A trio of wealthy Texans have donated more than half of the money the pro-Republican super-PAC American Crossroads has received, according to a new study by the Center for Public Integrity.

Bob Perry, Harold Simmons and Robert Rowling have combined to donated $30.5 million to the group, more than half of the $56 million the total the group has raised since its creation.

All three are longtime Republican donors: Perry and Simmons provided the bulk of the money behind the controversial Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign, which [smeared] Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)… Rowling was a major fund-raising bundler for President George W. Bush’s (R) 2000 and 2004 elections.

US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s campaign said today that she raised $6.9 million in the first three months of the year, continuing the Democratic challenger’s staggering pace and doubling the figure collected by incumbent Scott Brown…

Warren’s campaign noted in an e-mail sent to supporters today that she still has $4 million less in the bank than Brown, who had money left over from his 2010 special election victory when he began fundrasing for his reelection campaign.

The latest numbers show that she has to continued to close that gap with surprising speed.

Charles and David Koch are each worth about $25bn, which makes them the fourth richest Americans. When you combine their fortunes, they are the third wealthiest people in the world. Radical libertarians who use their money to oppose government and virtually all regulation as interference with the free market, the Kochs are in a class of their own as players on the American political stage. Their web of influence in the US stretches from state capitals to the halls of congress in Washington DC.

The Koch brothers fueled the conservative Tea Party movement that vigorously opposes Barack Obama, the US president. They fund efforts to derail action on global warming, and support politicians who object to raising taxes on corporations or the wealthy to help fix America’s fiscal problems. According to New Yorker writer Jane Mayer, who wrote a groundbreaking exposé of the Kochs in 2010, they have built a top to bottom operation to shape public policy that has been “incredibly effective. They are so rich that their pockets are almost bottomless, and they can keep pouring money into this whole process”…

Lee Fang, an investigator with the Republic Report, told reporter Bob Abeshouse that the “Kochs will have a tremendous impact [this year]. On a larger scale this election will come down to a few billionaires: a couple on the left supporting the Democrats, and a lot on the right supporting the Republicans. I think in 2013 people will look back on this election as the greatest one bought and sold.”

Two groups connected to former Herman Cain chief of staff Mark Block are being investigated by federal officials, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

FBI agents have been talking to donors and other individuals connected to Prosperity USA and the Wisconsin Prosperity Network, according to the newspaper. The groups came under scrutiny late last year because they allegedly helped get Cain’s presidential run off the ground by donating iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa to the campaign.

“They are very interested in Mark and these groups,” a source familiar with the probe told the newspaper. “It is not my sense, right now, that Cain is a target.”