Haley Barbour Joins Karl Rove-Linked Super PAC To Help Raise $240 Million

WASHINGTON -- Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour is joining American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, an influential Republican Super PAC and an affiliated non-profit group, to help them reach their newly doubled fundraising goal of $240 million to spend on the 2012 presidential election.

The two groups were founded in 2010 by Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie after the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision opened the door to unlimited corporate, union, and individual spending in elections. The decision also allowed certain nonprofits, which are not required to disclose their funding sources, to run direct electoral advertisements calling for the election or defeat of candidates. Both groups can receive unlimited contributions, but Crossroads GPS, which is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, does not have to disclose its donors.

"Both Governor Barbour and Karl Rove are prodigious fundraisers and brilliant strategists, and we are honored to have them both engaged with us," Steven Law, president of both groups, said in a statement. "We are reaching high in our fundraising goals because we believe this is going to be a destiny-shaping election for our country."

Barbour, who passed on running for the Republican presidential nomination in April, is a well-known fundraiser from his time as chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) from 1993 to 1997 and the Republican Governors Association (RGA) from 2009 through 2010. Barbour pulled in a record-setting $115 million for the RGA during the 2010 cycle after he took over in mid-2009 from Mark Sanford, then the Governor of South Carolina, who resigned as chair amid a sex scandal.

American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS spent a combined $38 million in 2010, which amounted to the fourth largest total spent by an outside group, ahead of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and behind only the other three congressional party committees.

If the duo were to spend $240 million on the 2012 election it would crush the record for outside group spending in one election cycle. That record is currently held by Barbour's RGA, which spent $131 million in the 2010 cycle, followed by the 2004 Democratic group Americans Coming Together, which spent $78 million.

Comments

[El Pinguino]

12:25 PM on 09/26/2011

"....that would indeed seem impressive, if it weren’t for the fact that Washington is visibly on the decline, oscillating wildly between a lame populism and a stale orthodoxy, and shilling for casino capitalism on a side street in its spare time. It’s a giant power enveloped in political and economic paralysis for all the world to see, and no less visibly incapable of coming up with an exit strategy." -- Pepe Escobar

[Patrick Wm Connally]

10:36 PM on 09/11/2011

No Republican ever answers, What kind of jobs does an uneducated and unhealthy workforce bring?

[Joseph LeCompte]

12:05 PM on 09/10/2011

how many dollars of tax cuts for the wealthy go to PACs that elect tax cutters for the wealthy?

[SabeWhat]

10:49 AM on 09/10/2011

Why isn't he working harder to bring jobs to Mississippi. IF he has all this spare time why is he not doing that?

How much of the $250MM will go in his pocket or that of a family member?

Haley B - Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

[LMPE]

06:12 PM on 09/10/2011

When you're Haley Barbour's size, it's hard to do any work.

[nothingchanges]

10:07 AM on 09/10/2011

According to Republicans, we're broke. We can't afford to address many of America's problems.

Yet when it comes to "buying" politicians, there doesn't seem to be any recession at all. More money will be raised and spent on election advertising in 2012 then ever before.

One reason the rich are the ONLY segment of our society that has seen their bottom lines increase in the last 30 years?

Congress works for THEM, not for us. They OWN our government, lock, stock, and barrel. With absolutely no intention of ever losing their control over it.

We really do have "The Best Government Money Can Buy", and it shows.

[Minu Ramsey]

12:41 PM on 09/15/2011

Don't know ask Nancy Pelosi how she was able to get a 61% return on her original 20 million dollars in a recession did you know that since 2009 she has managed a increase of her pittance 20 million dollar to a mere 47.8 Million?
Asking others to do what you won't is the domain of the Democratic Hypocrits!
How about Mr. Kerry, getting a "marina" across the way from Massachussetts so he could save money on the taxes he would have otherwise have to pay? A lie wrapped in riddles does not a mystery make...they preach what they don't follow, they are not fools, the money is GOOD... that's common sense, that's reality, share the wealth? yeah...right!

[sunshine14]

09:39 AM on 09/10/2011

$240 million plus would help a lot of  human beings. What a waste of money. None are out there working for that are they? common sense has it been lost?

[behavingbadly]

09:14 AM on 09/10/2011

At what point do we say "enough!" How obscenely un-American does the influence of money in politics have to become before the founders climb up out of their graves, grab their shattered dreams and the tattered remnants of the constitution, and move back to Europe.

[deb0214]

09:00 AM on 09/10/2011

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,

laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

What say the People ?

[1differentdrummer]

07:03 AM on 09/10/2011

One crook helps another.

[withonor]

03:09 AM on 09/10/2011

Republicans need super pacs because their candidates can't raise the money themselves and they're not in office of their own accord. It's these chumps and groups like A.L.E.C. that get them in office.

[OhMyBoehner]

01:12 AM on 09/10/2011

I can't imagine giving money to greasy whaley blubber.. he makes me think of old men who strangely hang out around playgrounds!

[Ricch]

12:56 AM on 09/10/2011

Two beautiful, if corpulent, men joined in a common cause. What a great country. And to think, I could have missed this, I was only online to look for some new tires.

[Mark Cobb]

11:23 PM on 09/09/2011

He'll just have a "white sale" and sell sheets...

[LMPE]

06:13 PM on 09/10/2011

...to be catered by Deep Fat Frying Inc.

[OhMyBoehner]

10:39 PM on 09/09/2011

w perry better hope whaley blubber doesn't give the rovester all that money - he'll be toast!

[FL TallMan]

10:31 PM on 09/09/2011

There are certainly a lot of folks working and paying to get that black man out of the White House. Just think if all that money raised by all the various groups were to go to feed the hungry, clothe kids in winter, provide help for free clinics, hire the unemployed, etc.

But, rather than actually helping the people of the country, these republicans would rather promote their radical agendas.

[Minu Ramsey]

12:51 PM on 09/15/2011

can you hear your gums flapping?
How about the 1 Billion obama will throw away trying to get himself re-elected? Imagine it takes a latina to bring this up... now go ahead, can't wait for you to call me racist...laughable, the double standard is appaling!
I can't imagine how you convinced 852 good people to become fans of such illogical assessment of the issues.

[Marty Kenyan]

06:32 PM on 09/26/2011

The age old circle ... both houses are in a frenzy to raise funds ... brought to you by our friends at the Supreme Court of The United Corporations of America. The same folks that opened the floodgate of corporate donations giving greater weight to the company than the individual. With the cooperation and encouragement of the last administration.
Though one difference seems to be that President Obamas funds seem to be coming from individuals of $250 or less. The GOP tends to rely on large single and corporate donations.