Friday, February 03, 2012
Paul Singer
While many experts have predicted that President Barack Obama will ultimately out-fundraise his Republican opponent in the 2012 presidential race, GOP front-runner Mitt Romney isn’t doing badly for himself.
Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future, raised $17.9 million during the last six months of 2011. It pulled in another $12.2 million in the first six months of last year.
Not surprisingly, Romney is popular with fellow private equity and hedge fund executives. Helping Romney collect so much money were seven donors who each gave $1 million to Restore Our Future. These included:
· Paul Singer, the billionaire who heads the Elliott Management hedge fund;
· Hedge fund kingpins Julian Robertson of Tiger Management and Robert Mercer of Renaissance Technologies;
· Florida energy executive Bill Koch of Oxbow Carbon;
· Miguel Fernandez, chair of a Miami private equity firm MBF Healthcare Partners;
· Rooney Holdings of Tulsa, Oklahoma;
· Companies run by Frank L. VanderSloot, co-chair of Romney’s Idaho finance operation, whose firms sell Nicole Miller Timeless Age Defying Serum and other home “wellness” remedies.
In Obama’s fundraising camp are more than 60 bundlers who have each raised at least $500,000 so far for the reelection campaign. To date, the incumbent has collected $75 million to win a second term.
The half-million dollar bundlers include:
· Former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, who has been at the center of the MF Global controversy (Corzine is reportedly no longer helping raise funds for Obama);
· Michael Kempner, president and CEO of MWW Group, a public relations firm with a large lobbying business (Kempner himself is not a registered lobbyist);
· Sally Susman, executive vice president for policy, external affairs and communications at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc.;
· Movie producers Jeffrey Katzenberg and Andy Spahn of DreamWorks and Harvey Weinstein;
· David Cohen, executive vice-president of Comcast;
· Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour
· Matthew Barzun, who resigned as U.S. ambassador to Sweden to take over as national finance chair of Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
After TV Cameras Leave, Romney Super PAC Discloses $18 Million (by Bill Dedman, msnbc.com, and Michael Isikoff, NBC News, with reporting by NBC's Azriel Relph and Lisa Riordan Seville)
Obama Bundlers Include Jon Corzine, Eva Longoria and Advisers on Solyndra (by John Frisby, Associated Press)
Committee: Restore Our Future, Inc. (Federal Election Commission)
Obama 2012 Bundlers (OpenSecrets.org)
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